Eiichi Ohtaki -- Koi no Kisha Poppo（恋の汽車ポッポ）

My feelings about the COVID-19 terror that's been around us for the last little while and may continue around us for probably the bulk of this year have been having me go up and down somewhat like a kiddie's roller coaster. There have been some moments of sadness and there have also been some moments of "Avengers Assemble!".

Fortunately, one source that has been able to bring out more of the latter moments is the ability to talk with friends via social media or phone. I got to do that today with Rocket Brown from Come Along Radio for a couple of hours, and so we were able to chat on the wonders of City Pop from our respective homes in Canada and the United States.

A song that Rocket introduced me to today was the late Eiichi Ohtaki's（大滝詠一）debut single as a solo act, "Koi no Kisha Poppo" (Love Train Choo-Choo) which came out in December 1971. His band, Happy End（はっぴいえんど）would still be around for several more months, and for "Koi no Kisha Poppo", he still had his three other bandmates, Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）help out in the recording studio. However, because he probably wanted his debut tune to stand apart from his Happy End material, the credits included the four being given wacky kanji pseudonyms instead. Still, though, it was Matsumoto's lyrics paired with Ohtaki's music. As another interesting twist, the Happy End guys even traded instruments during recording. For example, bassist Hosono took on the drums while guitarist Ohtaki was on bass. Incidentally, it was Matsumoto behind lyrics and Ohtaki handling the melody.

According to the liner notes for Ohtaki's self-titled debut album "Ohtaki Eiichi", which was released the following year in November, the single version for "Koi no Kisha Poppo", launched with a snare drum riff in tribute to the intro for Little Eva's classic "The Loco-Motion" (good job, Harry!), and apparently the comparison was enough for Ohtaki to get the cover photo for the song with him sitting on an old steam engine. I thought that the fellow was noshing on something when Rocket gently corrected me that he was most likely smoking a cigarette (he was a rock n' roll singer, you know).

Perhaps there was some DNA from "The Loco-Motion" intertwined in Ohtaki's debut tune, but I also thought that there was a certain roots rock feeling to "Koi no Kisha Poppo". And sure enough, the J-Wiki article bore my feelings out when it mentioned that the rock n' roll in there was reminiscent of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Maybe there is even some late-era Beatles in there, too. In addition, I noticed in that same article that the song has been dedicated to the aforementioned Little Eva but also to Neil Sedaka.

"Ohtaki Eiichi" also has the album version titled "Koi no Kisha Poppo, Dai Ni-bu"（第二部...No. 2）which has some different lyrics, some additional 60s Girl Pop feeling thanks to some background vocals, and a fade out at the end, compared to the hard stop at the end of the single version. The album peaked at No. 75 on Oricon.

In any case, during this long COVID-19 winter, don't hesitate to communicate with your friends and family whether by e-mail, Skype or phone.