Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Sunday, January 6, 2019

Eikichi Yazawa -- I Love You, OK(アイ・ラヴ・ユー、OK)


Some days ago, I received a query on Japanese songs that had that 1950s flavour from the 1970s and 1980s, so names such as Mariya Takeuchi(竹内まりや), Momoe Yamaguchi(山口百恵), Checkers(チェッカーズ)and Mizue Takada(高田みづえ)popped up.


Coincidentally enough, just a little bit after that, I discovered the debut single for rock veteran Eikichi Yazawa(矢沢永吉). His name and visage appeared on a retrospective of the Kohaku Utagassen that was televised last week on NHK, and then looking around on YouTube, I saw this number "I Love You, OK".

The fellow who gave me that initial question would be happy with this one as well. "I Love You, OK" has that love song atmosphere of "American Graffiti" and "Happy Days", and this was Yazawa's first solo single after the breakup of his band Carol(キャロル). Released in September 1975, the song was actually composed by Yazawa and written by vocalist Yukio Aizawa(相沢行夫)of the band NOBODY. Originally, this had been created by a teenage Yazawa with him writing English lyrics, some of which were used in his live album "Super Live Nippon Budokan"(スーパーライブ 日本武道館)from July 1977.


According to the J-Wiki article for "I Love You, OK", even before the creation of Carol, Yazawa had brought the song on a demo tape to the folks at Toshiba EMI (now EMI Music Japan), only for it to be rejected since at the time, folk music was all the rage. Even Yazawa's fans at the time were not too interested in hearing "I Love You, OK" over many of his other songs.

However, any antipathy against the song has perhaps disappeared over the decades. Another version of "I Love You, OK" was put onto his 1990 27th single "Pure Gold" which hit No. 1 on Oricon and became the 64th-ranked single of the year. And I think the song was still quite precious to Yazawa; at one concert to commemorate his 50th birthday at the current Nissan Stadium in Yokohama in 1999, he was performing his old single when he was overcome with emotion halfway through.

The song became the title track for Yazawa's debut album which was also released in September 1975.

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