(excerpt only)
How would you like to be on a plane taking off while this song is playing? Yep, as a Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）fan, I'm biased, but I think that I would be slightly more relaxed than I usually would be having Yuming（ユーミン）lulling me into a calmer state. Again, I'm not a huge fan of air travel.
I first heard "Zansho" (Lingering Summer Heat) after acquiring her November 1990 22nd album "Tengoku no Door"（天国のドア...The Gates of Heaven） during my JET days. Considering the release date, perhaps a lot of her fans were indeed swooning about those last days of summer. I certainly am now since my city has apparently gotten an early taste of winter. It's a lazy and mellow tune in which I especially like that gentle intro of an Asian riff with that concluding chord sounding like something from Steely Dan.
Going from the 1980s into the 1990s, I recall that Yuming and her husband Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）were aiming for that pop sound with plenty of synthesizers, a move for which the latter has since expressed some regret in a later interview. However, I think that sound just represents that particular stage in his wife's career, and I have no animosity at all for "Zansho".
Some years later, I found out that Yuming's "Zansho" on "Tengoku no Door" was actually a self-cover of a song that had been given to singer-songwriter Reimy（麗美）early in her career. The original was Reimy's 3rd single from September 1984, and though I prefer the newer arrangement from 1990, Reimy's "Zansho" still has that wondrous and whimsical air along with that mellow sound that characterized Yuming's music at the same time.
"Zansho" was also a track on Reimy's 2nd album "R" which came out at the same time as the single. Just to finish off, although I have enjoyed Reimy's later work and voice as the 80s came to a close, there is something also very angelic about her vocals back when she first started.
Hello Canuck,
ReplyDeleteI've heard both version of this song. While it's one of my favorite Yuming songs from this particular phase in her career, to me, this song has always belonged to Nancy Wilson (the Jazz singer, not one of the Wilson sisters of the Heart) who released an English language version of this titled I Believe In You, in 1984, the same year Reimy released hers.
It was used in a TV ad for something and I immediately ran out to buy the single and was surprised to find out that it was penned by none other than Yuming.
I didn't know any English back then, so all I can remember of the lyrics is the of chorus that begins with "I believe in destiny, I believe in mystery.." and ends with "but most of all, I believe in you".
My copy of that single has been long lost, and it is one of the hardest records to find in the used record market.
Hi, Kaz.
DeleteBoy, I would love to hear Wilson's version of "Zansho" then. I tried to look it up but all I got was another "I Believe In You" that she had recorded back in 1964 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzvsSMAPAs8...pretty darn good, too). Sorry to hear that you lost your copy.