Miki Imai -- Second Engage（セカンドエンゲージ）

Whenever I think of Miki Imai's（今井美樹）3rd album "Bewith" from 1988, I'm always going to envision that red-orange tent by the beach. It's been several months since I've written up an Imai tune (the previous one was also from "Bewith") and it was nice to come across this number from her early days.

As I've said before, I will always have a fondness especially for Imai's early days as a singer in the mid-late 1980s. There was something about the arrangements of her songs back then which had a refreshing lightness and mellowness. One such song that I've become re-acquainted with is "Second Engage" from "Bewith". It's a pretty happy tune by Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也）although Masami Tozawa's（戸沢暢美）lyrics are a bit more bittersweet as a woman gives a final goodbye to an old flame before she takes off for new horizons.

I hear those champagne synths in the song, and this time, instead for a paint-the-town-red City Pop tune of the late 1980s, they're used to lighten "Second Engage". Of course, there are those wonderful Imai vocals as well lifting things up.

"Bewith" was Imai's first No. 1 album and it won Best Album at the Japan Record Awards for the 2nd time in a row after her 2nd album "elfin".