Miki Asakura -- Snowbird

One of my earliest musical memories was provided by legendary Canadian singer Anne Murray when she sang "Snowbird" from 1970. The breezy pop hit has long imprinted itself into my memory and it was often the case that I saw the Nova Scotia-born Murray on TV shows such as "The Tommy Hunter Show" (yes, I'm sorry, I'm delving too far into the Canadiana here....just had a little too much maple syrup on the pancakes today). In any case, nowadays, whenever anyone says or hears the term snowbird, most likely the image that comes to mind is of retired Canadians heading south to Florida or other tropical climes to flee the winter.

Well, speaking of tropical, I bring you another "Snowbird", but this time by Japanese songbird Miki Asakura（麻倉未稀）. Armed with a bit of Latin shimmy, Asakura's 4th single from November 1982 is a City Pop bittersweet lament about remembering far happier times when a relationship was still intact and involved a trip to that winter lodge. Still, despite that scene, the music by Masahiko Takase（高瀬政彦）is still arranged as if the protagonist will be taking a long lonely walk on the streets of Roppongi later on tonight.

Even with the rather unhappy story, though, I really quite like "Snowbird" for that bit of disco with the guitar and the flute, and it's really quite reminiscent of other singers such as Junko Yagami（八神純子）and Miki Matsubara（松原みき）. The song was also the title track of her 3rd album from December in that same year.