Ox/Chiyo Okumura/Mi-Ke -- Swan no Namida（スワンの涙）

I figured that I would be getting a compilation album of a famed songwriter's works sometime, and sure enough, I purchased this one called "Tsutsumi Kyohei: Jisen Sakuhinshuu"（筒美京平自選作品集...Kyohei Tsutsumi's Personal Selection）, not realizing that 2018 is composer Kyohei Tsutsumi's（筒美京平）50th anniversary in the music business. This man has created so many songs for so many different singers and bands over the past half-century that his collection has had to be divided into three 2-CD sets depending on genre (and that still doesn't come anywhere near his total output). There is the set devoted to aidoru, a second devoted to more AOR pursuits and then there is the one that I got: City Pop. Heck on this blog, only Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）has more entries than Tsutsumi as a songwriter. Furthermore, I've already written his own Creator article.

Tsutsumi and Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）created this ballad for the Group Sounds band Ox (and the two of them also provided the band with their debut single), "Swan no Namida" (Tears of a Swan) as their 3rd single in December 1968. It was not only on CD 1 of the tribute compilation that I now have (although I'm not sure if I would call it City Pop) but by grand coincidence, the song was even performed on NHK's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）a little over a week ago.

Considering the band was named after a pretty husky animal, "Swan no Namida" is a tenderhearted GS ballad about a young couple who may be keeping their relationship secret and who may be considering a breakup for the good of all. They are having a final walk together and visiting some of their favourite places including a church and a terrace. Hashimoto's lyrics mention some place up in the north so I'm wondering if they had any particular place in mind such as Sendai or Sapporo.

Selling over 250,000 records, "Swan no Namida" managed to reach as high as No. 7 on the embryonic Oricon, and ended up as the 44th-ranked single of 1969.

There have been plenty of covers of the song over the decades with perhaps the earliest being done by Chiyo Okumura（奥村チヨ）in June 1969 for her 3rd album "Anata to Chiyo to..."（あなたとチヨと…You and Chiyo and...）. Her take is a bit more of a straight kayo version from that time with the strings and flute.

(cover version)

Another cover was provided by the trio Mi-Ke, whose modus operandi was dusting off a lot of those old kayo and breathing new life into them. It looks like their take on "Swan no Namida" went through the B'z arrangement filter. The song was included in their debut album "Omoide no GS Kujukurihama"（想い出のG.S九十九里浜...Memories of G.S. Kujukurihama）which peaked at No. 19 on the Oricon charts.