Signal/Hiromi Iwasaki -- Hatachi no Meguriai（20歳のめぐり逢い）

A bit of an introspective one for a Friday night but it is a lovely song by the folk band Signal（シグナル）. Consisting of bassist Isao Tamura（田村功夫）, guitarist Masanori Sumide（住出勝則）, guitarist Akio Asami（浅見昭男）, and bassist Tatsuo Inagaki（稲垣達雄）, Signal had its run for the better part of a decade between 1975 and 1984. Based mainly in the Kansai region, Polydor Records took note of their song "Hatachi no Meguriai" (Encounter at 20) and soon after, it was released as their debut single in September 1975.

Once again, good timing on that release since "Hatachi no Meguriai", which was written and composed by Tamura, relates the story of a man's memories of the young woman who could have been the love of his life but for whatever reason, they are no longer together. The tropes of season and loss of romance are all in there: dried leaves, September, and a bus stop. However, Tamura's creation isn't completely sad...the protagonist still has his memories to cherish and there's a certain bounce which develops as the song progresses, so it's more wistful. And I don't exactly know how old the man is at the time that he's remembering his brief romance. Is the breakup still fresh or is it now decades down the line?

"Hatachi no Meguriai" managed to reach No. 14 on Oricon, and later became the 32nd-ranked single for 1975. It sold 300,000 records and was the biggest hit by the band.

Some years later, Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）gave a tenderhearted but slightly more subdued rendition of "Hatachi no Meguriai" in her album of covers "Sumire Iro no Namida"（すみれ色の涙）from November 1981. I think her version can rival that of the original take by Signal, and for that matter, although the album has been categorized as an aidoru release, this song and the title track illustrate that Iwasaki was now much more of the pop chanteuse. I keep forgetting that "Sumire Iro no Namida" was indeed a cover of the original by Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets since Iwasaki's cover is so much her own song. The LP peaked at No. 16 on Oricon.