Junko Sakurada -- Sentimental Boy（センチメンタル・ボーイ）

Last month, I wrote about "Party's Over", the title track from 70s aidoru Junko Sakurada's（桜田淳子）12th album released in September 1979. It was the sad and innocent ballad about a young lady who couldn't get that dance with the guy of her dreams and probably ended up as the last person at the ball when the janitorial staff were already well onto their cleaning duties.

Well, when I was writing about that particular song, I noticed that there was another tune in the recommendations on the right side, and it was simply called "Sentimental Boy". It did turn out to be another Sakurada song which was also included in "Party's Over" the album. The other notable point is that its melody was provided by none other than Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）.

With lyrics by Tadashi Iwasawa*（岩沢律）, "Sentimental Boy" seems to be about a girl's love for that shy quiet type, and where "Party's Over" the song is melancholy, this one is effervescent with an almost Dixieland jazz sort of feeling. The intro even starts rather atypically with a keyboard passage that made me first wonder whether this was going to be a technopop tune, but then this is a Tats creation so I couldn't really imagine the whole song being that way. And as the rest of "Sentimental Boy" goes, the shy guy here probably comes out of his shell while fluttering his pork-pie hat and twirling his cane.

It's an aidoru tune and I think it almost goes into AOR territory but it stays within its borders inside the pop zone. Along with those wonderful horns, I also enjoy that electric guitar solo that sees things off to the end. So, if "Party's Over" gets you a little down, I encourage you to try "Sentimental Boy" for that lift up.

*Not quite sure about my reading of the first name for the lyricist so once again, if you can correct me on this, please do so.