Keiko Takeshita -- Bedside no Komori Uta（ベッドサイドの子守唄）

Got one more up my sleeve for articles tonight and so I'll finish things off with a City Pop tune from an unlikely source.

(37:36)

Just about 3 years ago, I wrote about actress Keiko Takeshita（竹下景子）and the fact that I was surprised that she actually released music in the late 1970s and early 1980s considering that I had only known her for her TV appearances. Her debut single was the innocent kayo "Kekkon Shitemo Ii desu ka"（結婚してもいいですか）from 1978 which sounds like a tune that someone like Agnes Chan could have tackled in the early 1970s.

Well, I got another surprise here as well, since the B-side to her 1980 3rd single "Watashi no Naka no Onna-tachi"（私の中の女たち...The Women In Me）, "Bedside no Komori Uta" (Bedside Lullaby) has her performing some of that soothing City Pop/AOR. Although Takeshita's voice still retains some of that innocence, her performance here sounds more assured and slightly richer. Of course, I will always appreciate that playful Fender Rhodes and that chorus acting like a sunset wind blowing through the windows. Plus, I also like that trombone solo. Akiko Tsuchiya（土屋明子）provided the lyrics while Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）came up with the melody that's a bit more reminiscent of her New Music/City Pop days through "Sunshower" and "Mignonne", rather than her dramatic comeback of "Romantique" which came out in the same year as this Takeshita single.