Hiromi Go -- Samui Yoake（寒い夜明け）

Last night on NHK's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, the tribute was to the late songwriter Tokiko Iwatani（岩谷時子）who provided lyrics for a lot of kayo kyoku and even translated lyrics for covers of Western songs. One singer who popped up on the videotape montage for Iwatani was Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）back in his aidoru days of the 1970s.

Unfortunately I couldn't find that Iwatani-written song for Go but I figured it was time for another song by the Dandy Aidoru, and since the last article I did for him back in June was for a 1980s City Pop number, I thought it would be nice to take things back to his early age.

So I found the chipper "Samui Yoake" (Cold Dawn) which was his 19th single released in November 1976. The melody by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）is really cheery and bouncy. In fact, I was wondering if this song had actually been meant for another Hiromi...Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）, since Tsutsumi's arrangement with its bounciness, bass and slightly urban feel was the type of music he had created for Iwasaki.

Another kayo trope I found with "Samui Yoake" was with Kazuo Umezu's（楳図かずお）lyrics. Umezu's usual job is being a writer of Japanese sci-fi/horror but although there isn't anything scary about the words, they are still pretty bittersweet. The guy is taking his girlfriend to the station near the end of the year for what is probably the last time since the song is hinting that the relationship is as frozen as the weather. I guess this would be another example of happy music, sad words in the world of kayo.

"Samui Yoake" managed to get as high as No. 5 on Oricon. It was also a track on his 8th album from December 1976, "Machikado no Shinwa"（街かどの神話...Street Corner Legends）.