Off-Course -- Natsu no Hi （夏の日）

Yup, it was a pretty short summer here. There were some hot days in July but now nearing the end of August, those low temperatures are getting quite low...10 degrees Celsius or 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I think that would constitute close to winter in Tokyo.

Therefore with the dog days of summer now looking to be over, I think it's time to put on an appropriately seasonal Off-Course（オフコース）tune, "Natsu no Hi" (Summer Days). Written and composed by Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）as the band's 26th single in July 1984, it's as perennially pop as Off-Course ever became in the 1980s when compared to their folk days in the 1970s. That intro with Oda tapping the keyboard and drummer Jiro Ohma（大間ジロー）smacking the syn-drums even had me thinking more along the lines of Yellow Magic Orchestra. Still, when Oda started singing away, I had no doubts about who the band was.

Written as a elegy and a plea for a romance to come back together since the whole thing started in the sunny season, "Natsu no Hi" got an even bigger boost of drama through its own music video. It even starred Ohma as the lovelorn guy trying to make that second chance with his girlfriend, played by TV drama vet Misako Tanaka（田中美佐子）, although I think that prologue with presumably Misako's parents waiting for a call from her kidnapper didn't quite the fit the circumstances.

Still for an Off-Course fan, it was a pretty epic experience since according to J-Wiki, it was the first time that Oda and company ever participated in a conceptual music video, and the setting included filming at a café/restaurant called Marlowe (yup, it's still there) in the city of Yokosuka and Narita Airport. The song itself starts from 2:09 above.

The single itself got as high as No. 15 while it ended up as the 182nd-ranked song for 1984. "Natsu no Hi" also belonged to Off-Course's 11th album "The Best Year of My Life" which did far better. It hit No. 1 for 2 weeks straight and became the 17th-ranked album of the year after its release in June.