Naoko Kawai -- Invitation

Another lovely discovery here, Naoko Kawai's（河合奈保子）"Invitation" is the follow-up 11th single to her hit "Kenka wo Yamete"（けんかをやめて）. As was the case with her 10th single, this ditty was also written and composed by Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや） but unlike the 50s bobbysoxer ballad that was "Kenka wo Yamete", "Invitation" is a contemporary straight-ahead ballad about a girl getting and accepting that invitation to her guy's room for the first time. Nothing sordid will go on here...good heavens, knowing how thin the walls are in Japanese houses, Mom and Dad would race upstairs with as much of the bladed silverware as they could carry if they heard so much as an emotional sigh through the ceiling.

Melodically speaking, it does make for a fine nostalgic listen with all those strings and cute keyboards of the 1980s. And aside from lyrics talking about that innocent meeting in the bedroom, any video that could have been made about the song would have featured young Naoko sitting on the balcony at night and singing to the moon.

"Invitation" went as high as No. 8 on Oricon and finished 1983 as the 70th-ranked song of the year (it was released in December 1982). Nope, perhaps it didn't get quite the acclaim that "Kenka wo Yamete" got, but it's still a nice little ballad. It's also the first track on her 5th original album "Album"（あるばむ）which came out in January 1983 with a No. 1 ranking.