Last October, I wrote about Meiko Nakahara's（中原めいこ）"Gokurakucho no Tehma"（極楽鳥のテーマ）, another one in her long line of smooth City Pop tunes for the evening.
I found its trackmate from her March 1986 album "Moods", "Lonely Woman", and like "Gokurakucho no Tehma", it was performed, written and composed by Nakahara with Shingo Kobayashi（小林信吾）providing that urban arrangement. However, it doesn't have that touch of Latin although things are still kept very much downtown although it has retained that feeling of the late 1980s brand of City Pop with what I've been calling those champagne synths. Maybe the title might not sound so happy but, yeah, it makes for a nice musical accompaniment for a night drive through Tokyo.
Of course, Nakahara is our most cordial host as, is written in her lyrics, she will be more than willing to wait out in the rain to make our arrival. Hopefully, she won't have to take us to any place too expensive.
What ARE the lyrics? I've literally been looking for lyrics to this (and "Number 1", "New York でサルサ {New York de SARUSA} off the same album, and "CASANOVA" off Kagami no Naka de Akutoresu) for literally this entire decade.
ReplyDeleteHello, iantuition.
DeleteIf I had "Moods", I would be happy to get those lyrics for this particular song out to you but I don't have this album...yet. Was just able to figure out the general meaning behind "Lonely Woman" through a couple of listens.
Ah man. I may have to finally get it myself. Long ago I think I saw a scan of the lyrics sheet somewhere, but it was blurry af and I can't read kanji anyway... yet.
DeleteMeiko's music has captivated me for a long time, ever since 2003 when I saw the Dirty Pair OVAs on Showtime Beyond. I downloaded the openings and endings for the entire series despite not having access to the anime itself and both her songs for the TV series floored me, along with the fact that she wrote them alone. Randomly searched her on YouTube in 2010, stumbled on "FANTASY" and had to find all her albums (and romanize all the lyrics I could find and upload them). It seems I was about seven years early because now everyone loves that song. I'm glad.
I wonder what she's doing now. She's so talented.
Yep, I know the feeling. I see Meiko as one of the City Pop queens alongside folks such as the two Junkos (Ohashi and Yagami) and Miki Matsubara. Over the last couple of years, I've been surprised and delighted at the rising interest in the genre outside of Japan.
DeleteAs for what the singer has been doing, your guess is as good as mine. I couldn't find anything on her current activities on J-Wiki.