Yuki Saito/Mioko Yamaguchi -- Owari no Kehai（終りの気配）

Because I hadn't been aware of who singer-songwriter Mioko Yamaguchi（山口美央子）was until this blog was well under way, I didn't know about her contributions to Yuki Saito's（斉藤由貴）10th album "LOVE" from 1991 when I bought the audiotape version decades ago.

(6:00)

I've now further found out that the Yamaguchi/Saito connection went back even further when the two of them worked together as composer and lyricist respectively on a track from the latter's 6th album "PANT" released in March 1988. The song, "Owari no Kehai" (The Sign of the End) was the lead track and was even used for the above NEC commercial featuring Saito herself. "PANT", by the way, peaked at No. 4 on Oricon.

"Owari no Kehai" is about the end of romance and yet Yamaguchi's melody sounds very innocent and child-like, further enhanced by Saito's near-whispery vocals. The overall feeling is of fragility as if Saito is representing someone all rolled up into a fetal position after having to go through a breakup that she hadn't wanted at all. At some points, the lass' voice almost threatens to vaporize, perhaps triggering the listener to want to pat her head and go "There, there...plenty of other fish in the sea". Then, there is the melancholy piano which takes up the last minute of the song that finishes off the effect; if I were a video director, the camera would be pulling away from Saito in that ball as the room she is gets bigger and bigger making her look even lonelier.

(excerpt only at 8:24)

What got me to write about the song in the first place was due to the fact that Yamaguchi had covered it in her latest album "FLOMA" which I took a look at last week. With the singer's deeper vocals and the somewhat more pensive arrangement, my image of "Owari no Kehai" here and now is that of an older version of Saito just going back through her memories of that long-ago romance with a little regret but also with more wisdom and distance.