Mari Iijima -- Cecile no Amagasa（セシールの雨傘）

Happy Monday! Perhaps for those in the Southern Ontario region, though, it may be not-so-happy Monday since the forecast is calling for another snowstorm starting from tomorrow morning and going throughout Tuesday. I'm rather glad that commuting is no longer a huge part of my life.

All the way back in 2013, Marcos V. wrote about one of Mari Iijima's（飯島真理）trademark tunes, "Cecile no Amagasa" (Cecile's Umbrella) Version II. In the article, he made that comparison between the original which had come out as Iijima's 5th single in August 1985 and Version II which was actually the album track on her 4th album "Kimono Stereo" from later that year in November.

Following a listen to both versions, I realized that my memories often took me to the original single, and although I have preferred the album version of "Cecile" , there are also nice things about the first take from August. However, I also agree with Marcos that the song, whichever the version, is City Pop. The champagne synths in the original are in there along with the boppy bass and the wailing guitar...and to me, those are the key instruments for the genre. The really booming drums that populate the original but not in Version II may not be to everyone's taste, but for me, they do help to mark this song in my memories, along with the chorus work.

With Iijima coming up with the music and Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）providing the arrangement, it was up to Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）to write the bittersweet lyrics of a man seeing his former love Cecile walking in the heavy rain, but with a new beau. It may have been the rain, but Cecile doesn't acknowledge her former flame one iota which affects the fellow a bit more than expected. The music lays down the drama as the guy probably dashes into the nearest bar or cafe to brood over a hot drink.

In any case, I'm glad that I was able to write about "Cecile no Amagasa" since like with Marcos, I had always wanted to not only give my angle on the song in general, but also give my thoughts on the original.