Dreams Come True -- Thank You.（サンキュ.）

When I first heard this Dreams Come True song, the band's 17th single from February 1995, the underlying music had this whimsical synth-flute sound that sounded rather familiar but for the life of me, I couldn't identify the source.

All I felt at the time was that "Thank You." was this down-home-in-the-country sounding song whose purpose seemed to be to put people at ease. And the lyrics by vocalist Miwa Yoshida（吉田美和）bring that message as a young lady expresses her gratitude to a loyal friend and hints that she may want to take things to the next level. Note to the friend: seize the day!

Back to the music by Yoshida and bassist Masato Nakamura（中村正人）. It wouldn't be years later when I got a BEST compilation of the Pat Metheny Group and heard the various songs there that I put 2+2 together and thought that perhaps "Thank You." may have been inspired by the works of Metheny. My only experience with him was through the 1980s collaboration between him and David Bowie, "This Is Not America" from the movie "The Falcon and the Snowman", and as much as I like the mystery and the wistfulness of the song, there was not all that much in common between it and the songs that I've heard on the BEST album.

I did find out there in the J-Wiki article for "Thank You." that the rhythm for the song was likely based on Metheny's "Slip Away". I actually gave it a listen on YouTube but didn't hear too much of a similarity between the two tunes; in fact, I thought "Slip Away" had more in common with the aforementioned "This Is Not America" strangely enough.

Still "Thank You." is another pleasant and laidback song that provided another hit for Dreams Come True. It peaked at No. 2 and became the 26th-ranked single for 1995. It also went Double Platinum, selling more than a million copies. The song also quickly became sold as a charity single following the Great Hanshin Earthquake that had occurred in January of that year. "Thank You." was also a track on DCT's 7th album "Delicious", hitting No. 1 for two weeks straight after its release in March and later becoming the No. 1 album of the year. It is currently the 22nd-ranked best-selling album in Oricon history.