Jun Togawa -- Sayonara wo Oshiete（さよならをおしえて）

The world beyond and locally has changed drastically over the past few months and over the past 24 hours. COVID-19 is now the big expression everywhere, and folks are changing habits that they had taken for granted. We've stocked up on supplies to ride out the storm if the storm were to hit us but have not gone crazy in the panic-buying spree, and aside from the disappearance of sanitizer and toilet paper from the supermarket shelves, it's still relatively normal.

And I intend to keep our little world of kayo kyoku normal as long as I can help it while making sure friends and family are fine.

For the topic of this article, my first statement is that I can sympathize with those recent City Pop fans who've pointed out that they feel nostalgic when they hear their newest beloved songs even though they were never born in the 70s or 80s or were simply too young to remember anything of those decades. In my case, perhaps various examples of French pop from the 1960s would be my own version.

Serge Gainsbourg is one example of that. When I hear Francoise Hardy sing "Comment te dire adieu" (1968), which was written/arranged by Gainsbourg and Jack Gold with Arnold Goland behind the music, I get those images of black-and-white television sets and music show staging with performers in turtlenecks. Usually, my active memories when I was a toddler were of "Hockey Night In Canada", sitcom openings and "Star Trek". Perhaps my parents were seeing that music stuff and the images simply melded into me subliminally.

But getting back to "Comment te dire adieu" (It Hurts to Say Goodbye), it just strikes me as the epitome of cool French pop with Hardy's wistful vocals, the breathy horns and that particular tinkly keyboard. It starts out with that sultry piano like a man-eating woman slinking down the stairs before Hardy comes in singing while asking why the love has to be broken up?

Now, back to the fact that this is a blog on Japanese music...I actually found out about the original song through a cover by the very vivacious Jun Togawa（戸川純）titled "Sayonara wo Oshiete". The Japanese lyrics from a fansite were provided by Togawa herself and the twist here is that she sounds like someone who is being taken away from her love by force but still loudly proclaims her ardor (I got really taken aback initially when Togawa suddenly went into Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき）fighting mode midway through). By the same token, there is also that feeling that the lady may be somewhat obsessed with her target. It's the music and its catchy New Wave arrangement by Yoshihiro Kunimoto（国本佳宏）that got me hooked, though.

"Sayonara wo Oshiete" first appeared on Togawa's November 1985 3rd album "Suki, Suki, Daisuki"（好き好き大好き...Love You, Love You, Love You So Much）, but according to the uploader for the official music video on ancient VHS above, due to some deteriorated audio, the above audio with the video is the one from the following album "Tokyo no Yaban"（東京の野蛮...Tokyo Barbarism）, her first BEST compilation from 1987. Speaking of that video, Togawa was definitely going all out to entertain, and her deranged nurse persona had me wondering if it inspired Ringo Shiina's（椎名林檎）own more stoic nurse in her video for "Honno"（本能）.

If I'm not mistaken, this may be the single version that was released in February 1986 (if I'm wrong, please let me know). This time, it sounds like Togawa was going full Nakajima right from the get-go.

Hey, I had to include Jimmy Sommerville's duet version with June Miles-Kingston from 1989.