Candies -- Soyokaze no Kuchizuke（そよ風のくちづけ）

A couple of nights ago on "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, there was a special guest in the form of Ran Ito（伊藤蘭）, formerly of the 1970s aidoru trio Candies（キャンディーズ）. Indeed, it was special because her appearance to sing at NHK Hall signified her first time behind the recording mike in 41 years, right after the disbanding of the group back in 1978! Since that time, Ito and fellow Candy, the late Yoshiko Tanaka（田中好子）, went on the path of the thespian while Miki Fujimura（藤村美樹）took a brief stab at a solo career before retiring for good. I'm not sure whether Candies ever got together for a comeback appearance or tour between 1978 and the time of Tanaka's untimely passing.

Of course, Ito performed a couple of the old hits including the evergreen "Haru Ichiban"（春一番）but since I've already covered that and the other song, I decided to go into the J-Wiki vaults to see what else was in there. So I found Candies' 3rd single from January 1974, "Soyokaze no Kuchizuke" (Breezy Kiss).

As cute and fluffy as a kitten, "Soyokaze no Kuchizuke" is the quintessential 70s aidoru tune with the quirky and perky arrangement and the high-tone vocals by Tanaka. Because it was an early single, Tanaka was the lead vocal in the centre position before Ito took over the spot for good from "Toshishita no Otokonoko" (年下の男の子）onwards in 1975. Lyrics were provided by Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）and music was by Koichi Morita（森田公一）with the song hitting No. 39 on Oricon. "Soyokaze no Kuchizuke" was also a track on Candies' 2nd album "Abunai Doyoubi ~ Candies no Sekai"（危い土曜日〜キャンディーズの世界〜...Dangerous Saturday: The World of Candies）.

This is something that was actually mentioned in the J-Wiki article for "Soyokaze no Kuchizuke", but the Candies' song resembles a 1959 tune by American vocal group The Drifters, "(If You Cry) True Love, True Love". I know that Jerry from Come Along Radio has made YouTube videos highlighting similarities between Japanese and Western pop songs, so this may be one of the oldest that he will discover.