In summer 1990, I set foot on US soil for the very first time in my life for my undergrad. I have pretty much disconnected myself from Hong Kong pop music from that time onwards. The Hong Kong music scene was transitioning from the dominance of Alan Tam (譚詠麟), Leslie Cheung (張國榮), and Anita Mui (梅艷芳) to the 4 Gods (四大天王), namely Jacky Zhang (張學友), Andy Lau (劉德華), Leon Lai (黎明), and Aaron Kwok (郭富城). Like J-Canuck, I also felt like I missed a lot of actions that’s happening in Hong Kong at that time. Consequently, music from the 90s always invokes a special feeling within my heart.
Forever You was released in a ZARD 1995 album with the same name, 2 years after the tremendous success of Makenaide (負けないで). Oda Tetsuro (織田哲郎) composed the music and ZARD, or Sakai Izumi (坂井泉水) was of course responsible for the lyrics. This song is probably a real story of Izumi’s life, and her reflection at that point in her career. In the song, she talks about the time when she fumbled along her way to seek her dream, referring to her early days as a race girl and model. Now that her dream has come true, she has found happiness and just wants to take steady steps and may be, find her true love one day. Reflecting on her past, she felt no regret, as it is the path she has chosen after all. She also felt extremely grateful and would never forget all the people who have helped her along the way.
In that same interview, Hiroshi revealed that almost no song was specifically written for ZARD. Consequently, Izumi had almost no contact with the song writer. It was because producer Nagato Daiko (長戸大幸) didn’t want to limit the creativity of Izumi regarding lyrics. Had she known that a song has been specifically written for her, she might be influenced to make word choices that she otherwise wouldn’t make in order to fit a particular melody, out of respect for the songwriter. I found this point quite interesting.
Enjoy!
Hello, Larry.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this tribute to ZARD. It's still hard to believe that she left this world way too early. Interesting point about Izumi not having too much contact with the songwriter. Was it because during the early part of her career, Nagato found that she was fretting too much about the lyrics in terms that she "owed" the songwriter for creating the song?
Not related directly to ZARD, but you also pointed out that J-Pop's history started from about 30 years ago...which is also when the Heisei Era began. I wonder how this era's music will be seen by historians as we go into the new era from next year.
J-Canuck, as we talked about this at lunch, ZARD will be remembered dearly, but Ayumi was dominant since the late 90s. I think the Heisei era will probably be remembered as an Ayumi era, along with some really really popular boy and girls group like EXILE, Arashi and AKB.
DeleteHi, Larry. Good to have met for lunch today. Since the mabo dofu hasn't burned through my intestines, I think the dish was very successful.
DeleteYup, I think Ayumi will be one of the big Heisei singers. It will be interesting how this era's group of singers will be seen in the years to come.
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