Kumiko Aimoto -- Itsutsu no Douka（5つの銅貨）

Back in June 2019, I wrote about aidoru Kumiko Aimoto's（相本久美子）"Mayonaka no Heroine"（真夜中のヒロイン）, an interesting synthpop concoction that was a part of her 1981 album "Yume Nanoni I Love You"（夢☆なのにI LOVE YOU...Even If It's A Dream, I Love You）. That 2nd album would mark the end of her recording career aside from her 2015 single "Dearest For You".

Well, I've got another track from "Yume Nanoni", "Itsutsu no Douka" (Five Copper Coins) and it's quite a different animal in terms of arrangement. In contrast with the synthpop of "Mayonaka no Heroine", "Itsutsu no Douka" has got a lot more of that downtown City Pop feeling going for it. It's a pretty active song with those cutting strings and bass, and it sounds slightly like the type of music that Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）had been singing in the latter half of her career, with perhaps a feeling of Junko Yagami（八神純子）.

For such a peppy song, the setting is a telephone booth around midnight in which a young lady has to face that romantic breakup by phone (lyrically, I guess this wouldn't be a Momoe song since she wouldn't wait til midnight to break things off and I think she wouldn't waste her time even bothering to call the lout). At first, I was wondering what the lass was doing with five pennies, and I realized that I was being too Canadian since our own defunct 1-cent piece was copper in colour. Copper coins in Japan actually represent 10 yen each which are good enough for those public telephones. Fifty yen, huh? Must have been a pretty intense call.

"Itsutsu no Douka" was written by Kenji Kadoya（門谷憲二）who has provided lyrics for singers that have represented the more languid Fashion Music state of things such as Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）and Mieko Nishijima（西島三重子）. Meanwhile, the funky music was created by Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常寛）, a composer who has backed up folks such as Omega Tribe.