The Lilies -- Sukiyo, Captain （好きよキャプテン）

Met up with a couple of old university buddies for dinner last night way out in the west end of Toronto called Mississauga. Don't worry if you can't pronounce it...even President Obama couldn't quite handle it.

Anyways, the three of us reminisced about old times as we usually do now at our age. One highlight was back over 20 years ago when one guy and I were being driven home late one night by one of our richer-if-not-too-smart friends in his sleek sports car when he told us suddenly that he was running desperately out of gas while we were in a fairly bad area of town. The two of us were ready to fling open the doors and just run for dear life in the hopes of hailing a taxi. We can laugh about it now thankfully.

Reminiscing is part and parcel of the kayo kyoku experience. And a lot of these aidoru songs way back when liked to tap the old school days. I managed to find another one on YouTube featuring a duo that I had never heard before called The Lilies（ザ・リリーズ）who had their heyday in the 1970s. Well, when you have famous aidoru groups back in that decade named after confections and cocktails, why not have another one named after flowers?

Twin sisters Naomi and Mayumi Tsubame（燕奈緒美・燕真由美）from the city of Yubari, Hokkaido Prefecture entered show business when they were in their 2nd year of junior high, and the powers-that-be at Watanabe Productions gave them their name The Lilies. They were named as such from the lilies-of-the-valley that proliferated along the highways and byways of their home prefecture.

Their 2nd and most successful single was "Sukiyo, Captain" (I Love You, Captain) from September 1975. Koichi Morita's（森田公一）brisk melody helped push along Takashi Matsumoto's（松本隆）lyrics about a student's memories of her beloved tennis club captain before he graduated and moved onto bigger and better things. I've only heard the one song out of The Lilies' discography so my initial impression of "Sukiyo, Captain" is that the Tsubames have a light relatable delivery to their young fans which reminds me somewhat of fellow aidoru Mari Amachi（天地真理）.

"Sukiyo, Captain" got as high as No. 39 and sold 80,000 records after its release. The Lilies released a total of 14 singles between 1975 and 1981 with 5 albums before officially calling it quits in 1986. However, Naomi and Mayumi decided to pick things up again in 2005 with 3 further singles.

Some nostalgic posters adorning the wall
at K's, an okonomiyaki place near
Nakano Broadway