NOVO -- You Are The Sea

 

Welcome to the first weekend of October 2020...definitely much cooler this time around with the temperature hovering around 4 degrees Celsius this morning.

Back in 2018, I wrote about a really nice band called NOVO which had a nice little song called "Ai wo Sodateru"（愛を育てる）which could be described as being a mix of bossa nova and David Foster/Carpenters. I was so charmed by it that I ended up buying the album "Love Is There ~ NOVO Complete Works" which was released back in 2013.

In my writeup back then, I didn't include the first track which is "You Are The Sea", a lovely mid-tempo bossa number written by Sheila Wilkerson and composed by pianist Joao Donato and Jose Marino. Originally, this was the B-side to the January 1973 single of "Ai wo Sodateru", and there's something in the basic rhythm that reminds me of the one for "Up, Up and Away" (1967) by The Fifth Dimension, one of the earliest pop songs that I can remember.

Long ago, I heard a theory in pop culture in which people tended to listen to more ballads when things are not going so well in the world. Considering what most of 2020 has been so far, perhaps listening to songs such as "You Are The Sea" might be what the doctor could order. Still, something like "September" will always be welcome, too.