hitomi -- Let's Play Winter

After a terrifying encounter with winter in November in which folks here were wondering whether they would be getting a new Ice Age well into 2020, this past December and into January has been unseasonably warm. In fact, it's been so warm and snowless that I'm sure that some of us wondering if winter has been cancelled. Environment Canada for our area is now predicting that it will be a milder winter than usual, and certainly today, with the high temperature closer to 10 degrees, I can agree with the prediction. And not too many citizens here are complaining since Xmas and New Year's are now past...let us all slide into spring without it getting too cold. Maybe the only people suffering right now are ski resort operators.

Getting onto things, getting into a technically seasonal frame of mind, allow me to introduce "Let's Play Winter" by hitomi. This is one of those revelatory articles on the blog where I had assumed that a singer's first big hit was the debut single...I'm of course talking about "Candy Girl", actually her 3rd single with the video showing how long her legs were.

However, "Let's Play Winter" was the song that started hitomi's career. Released in November 1994, it was written and composed by Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）, the artist who was often associated with the singer for the first number of years of her career. Immediately, that sense of natsukashii hit me like a dip into a January pond as I was listening to the song. I'd just been in Japan for a few weeks when this was released and the Komuro-ness of "Let's Play Winter" along with the arrangement that sounds like a modern winter J-pop tune brought those early days back into focus. I especially like that twangy guitar.

Not surprisingly, the song was used as the ending theme song for an NTV program titled "Action! Snow Board"（アクション! SNOW BOARD）. Couldn't find any footage of it but I assume that it was simply a variety show on the wonders of the sport. However, hitomi's debut didn't make any mark on Oricon although the album it was recorded on, "Go To The Top" from September 1995 peaked at No. 3, and of course, there were even sunnier times ahead of her.