Tombo-chan -- Hitoashi Okure no Haru（ひと足遅れの春）

Spring has taken its sweet time to spread into this area of Canada. It's been over a week since it officially arrived but things are still rather unseasonable in terms of temperature, but at least the snow's gone. We've been waiting for a few months...another number of days won't kill us.

Oh my word! The days of long hair and sweaters. But not to dwell too much on the cover of Tombo-chan's（とんぼちゃん）2nd single, "Hitoashi Okure no Haru" (Late Spring) from January 1975, the folk ballad itself is very soothing to listen to.

I've already written one article on this duo of Toyonobu Ito and Yoshimitsu Ichikawa（伊藤豊昇・市川善光）, and how they made the transition from folk singers to crooners of AOR into the next decade. However, "Hitoashi Okure no Haru" is definitely in the folk category. Written by Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）and composed by Ichikawa, the song is a melancholy one about a fellow who no longer gets correspondence from his lady love...not even the Japanese equivalent of a Dear John letter. I have a feeling those cherry blossom petals are dropping like flies for the poor guy. Still, there is plenty of sweet nostalgia from the arrangement including those 1970s strings.