The lovely thing about listening to an Off Course（オフコース）number is that it can be as cooling and refreshing as the sound of a fuurin wind chime during the summer. Plus, I also like a tall glass of cold Calpis at that time as well but Calpis is also super-sweet, and I couldn't really say that the band's songs are that.
I found another one of their songs that can fulfill that cooling and refreshing feeling via their 16th single from June 1979, "Kaze ni Fukarete" (Blowin' In The Wind). Nope, nothing to do with the Bob Dylan classic. Instead, it's that wistful ballad of regret and moving on after losing that opportunity to create that potentially beautiful relationship with a woman.
Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）wrote and composed "Kaze ni Fukarete", and as usual, Off Course's arrangements just bring back those sigh-worthy sepia-toned days of romances won and lost. The single did fairly modestly, selling around 37,000 records and reaching a peak of No. 41 on Oricon.
When I considered the title for this song, I thought about the symbolism that a wind has in any sort of Japanese TV program including anime. A waft of air could occur after a particularly cornball joke is told with the requisite "No Sell" reaction. It could also symbolize rejection or loneliness, but it can also signify reassurance and a feeling of renewal going ahead into the future. I realized that over the time that I've been writing about Off Course songs, often Oda has written about sad events regarding relationships, so loneliness was definitely included in "Kaze ni Fukarete" but I also think that renewal and hope were also included at the end.
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