Hideko Hara -- Yakusoku （約束）

I think some of the viewers looking at this will have had their second round of turkey, stuffing and gravy in as many nights so Xmas dinner exhaustion will be setting in right around now. We did the same here but all of the turkey has been ingested so we'll be back to normal eating from tomorrow.

The above is an old photo from 1981 during that Japanese Language School graduation trip with the guys and those Tezukayama Girls' High School students whose families hosted us for a few days in July. Amazing those hairstyles back then. Still, bell bottom pants were already a thing of the past so quite happy there.

When I think of Hideko Hara（原日出子）, I think of bathroom grout. Nope...that's an overly harsh assessment, but the actress/tarento has been a fairly familiar face on television through many commercials and variety show appearances. She always has had that cheerful and confident countenance as a housewife and mother. But she's also had her share of thespian performances including her stint as the main character on an NHK morning serial drama all the way back in 1981.

She even had a brief time behind the recording mike. Hara released just 3 singles between 1980 and 1982, and "Yakusoku" (Promise) is her sophomore song. Released in November 1981, it was created by the dream pair of lyricist Takashi Matsumoto and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（松本隆・筒美京平）, and although the first couple of bars sounded as if it were going to be a City Pop tune, "Yakusoku" is just a happy-go-lucky pop song with Hara giving a decent if not spectacular round at the mike. I like the melody since it is rather reminiscent of those innocent songs from a decade prior.

I don't know how it did on the rankings but I think it would be a major coup for the die-hard Hara fans if any of them manage to find a copy of this single.