Anzen Chitai -- We're Alive

A few nights ago, I was watching a documentary/concert film on one of the premier Japanese bands of the 1980s, Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）. Koji Tamaki（玉置浩二）was quite the charmer with the ladies in the audience. He even popped on out all of a sudden before the actual concert and did an impromptu acapella performance of "All I Do" right in the middle of the hall. The audience got a proper thrill although I'm sure the security folks were probably muttering all sorts of curses.

The other thing I saw but had already realized was that Tamaki and his band were all very smiley and jovial in comparison to their earlier appearances on TV when they were basically ordered to keep their stoic faces to enhance the coolness factor.

Strangely enough, this video right here is from the beginning of that documentary with Anzen Chitai performing "We're Alive". Y'know, if I actually had an Anzen Chitai Fan Club card, I would probably be asked to hand it in right now in shame since after close to 5 years writing this blog, I had yet to write an article on this particular song. I mean, it wasn't an A-side to a single but a B-side. Mind you, it was the B-side to the band's breakthrough hit, "Wine-Red no Kokoro"（ワインレッドの心）from November 1983, and even according to the J-Wiki page on their 4th single, "We're Alive" doesn't get any sort of mention outside of the credits.

Granted, it is easy for the song to be overshadowed by the atmospheric "Wine-Red no Kokoro", but "We're Alive" is also a nice happy tune that has that ability to cheer listeners up. I guess it would be the Light side to the A-side's Dark. In fact, compared to the band's other hits from the 1980s, "We're Alive" truly has that lighter and airier feeling right down to Tamaki's vocals.

I do remember (now) hearing it on "Sounds of Japan" many moons ago, so I gather my error was in assuming that I had already talked about it on the blog.

Tamaki was indeed behind the composition while Yukio Matsuo（松尾由紀夫）took care of the lyrics. It's nice to see this video of Anzen Chitai in 2012 performing "We're Alive" especially since my impression of the band since they started to get on the road again was that they were singing somewhat subdued versions of their big hits. Also if I can be allowed to be a bit snarky, maybe that title could also be used nowadays as a declaration of their current existence. The guys definitely look older, bigger and greyer but they are still putting out the good music.

I've mentioned it before but the single did hit the top spot on Oricon and was the 2nd-ranking song for 1984.