One of the more famous marine phenomena in Japan involves the Naruto no Uzushio（鳴門の渦潮...The Naruto Whirlpools）between the smaller island of Shikoku and the main island of Honshu in the Naruto Strait. Not surprisingly, it's a tourist attraction and it has even been given the shoutout in anime and has shown up in some of my translation assignments.
I was lucky enough then to find this uzu-themed song titled "Omoide no Uzu" (Whirlpool of Memories). Recorded by the band Mari & Red Stripes for release in March 1977. I would also like to point out that this was Masamichi Sugi's（杉真理）debut single (Mari being another reading for the kanji for Masamichi), and his backing group Red Stripes happened to include Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and Yasuhiro Abe（安部恭弘）as backup singers before their own debuts, and Jun Aoyama（青山純）on drums, according to Sugi's J-Wiki profile. Quite the informational discovery!
Mari & Red Stripes' self-titled debut album, which also came out on the same day as the single, also has "Omoide no Uzu". The song was written and composed by Sugi, and unlike the 2nd single "Hold On" which I compared to ballads by The Eagles and Carly Simon, "Omoide no Uzu" has more of a happy-go-lucky feeling of the 1960s as if the songwriter had been inspired by The Beatles taking a brisk hike through sunny Paris. I point this out only whimsically but maybe this debut could also have been a prototype for Shibuya-kei.
"Omoide no Uzu" was also a track on a double-LP production jointly called "Nice Pair" which consisted of the 1977 "Mari & Red Stripes" and the band's 1978 sophomore album "Swingy". I really do like that cover for "Nice Pair". Reminds me of a photo I took back in Shinjuku.
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