Mariya Takeuchi -- Mainichi ga Special（毎日がスペシャル）

Over here, my mornings are spent watching NHK's "News Watch 9" followed by local news channel CP24. However when I was living in Gunma all those years ago, I started my mornings with NTV's "Zoom In!! Asa!"（ズームイン!!朝!...Zoom In!! Morning!）but then some years later when I lived in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, I went with Fuji-TV's "Mezamashi Terebi"（めざましテレビ...Wake Up Television）. There's not all that much different between morning TV in Toronto and Tokyo aside from the facts that the broadcasters over in Japan are generally more formally attired and there's quite an interest in food there.

With "Mezamashi Terebi", there were the annual or semi-annual theme songs. I wrote about one by Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）, "La La Sunshine" which greeted viewers from 1996-1997. Well, I also remember another very sunny number by Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）titled "Mainichi ga Special" (Everyday is Special) which was the program's theme song between 2001 and 2002.

As would be the case for a Takeuchi song, "Mainichi ga Special" is a gosh-darn cheerful and mellow melodic glass of orange juice to help get folks off on their way to work. It might be hell on the subways and JR trains in the mornings but Takeuchi helped to take the edge off. Furthermore, though I never had any anecdotal proof, I bet there were quite a few commuters who had the title playing over and over in their heads.

The song was Takeuchi's 30th single from September 2001, and according to the J-Wiki article, it was the 10th song to be used on "Mezamashi Terebi". The singer-songwriter took care of words and music while her husband Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）handled the arrangement. It peaked at No. 40 on Oricon. "Mainichi ga Special" first made its appearance though on Takeuchi's 9th studio album "Bon Appetit!" which had come out a month earlier in August. That album went to No. 1 and became the 18th-ranked album for the year, breaking the million barrier in sales.