Sayuri Yoshinaga -- Asu no Hanayome（あすの花嫁）

Ahhh...to be young, footloose and fancy-free in early 1960s Japan as the nation was coming out from the shadow of the early postwar years. Not quite certain who the really popular actresses in Hollywood were at around the same time: were they Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn? I think I may have a slightly stronger handle when it comes to the Japanese equivalent...Sayuri Yoshinaga（吉永小百合）.

Of course, Yoshinaga has been represented on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for a long while. One of the first songs that I put up on the blog in that first year of existence was "Itsudemo Yume wo"（いつでも夢を）, her 1962 duet with Yukio Hashi（橋幸夫）that has become a kayo classic and a song that I heard early in my life.

Well, the B-side of that single was "Asu no Hanayome" (Tomorrow's Bride), this time only performed by Yoshinaga. Written and composed by the same duo behind "Itsudemo Yume wo", lyricist Takao Saeki（佐伯孝夫）and composer Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正）, this was the theme song for a 1962 Yoshinaga movie of the same name regarding a young woman born and raised on Shodo Island (just off of Kagawa Prefecture) but starting a new life as a student at a university in Kobe on the mainland. Of course, from what I've seen in the above video, she encounters all sorts of ups and downs including those of the romantic variety, everything to sate a Sayurist.

Not surprisingly, "Asu no Hanayome" has a similar sound to the much more famous "Itsudemo Yume wo" but it comes across as a sleepier and more contented ballad.