Naomi Akimoto -- Telepathy

 

Listening to this "Telepathy", a track on actress/singer Naomi Akimoto's（秋本奈緒美）5th album from February 1984, "Poison 21", something was squirming about in the back of my memories: Where have I heard this before? It all sounds so familiar.

Well, tracking the song on the JASRAC database, the realization of who created the song for Akimoto provided the instant resolution to my quandary. The singer did provide the lyrics but it was musician and composer Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）behind the music, and that's all I needed. "Telepathy" is another version of Sato's "Sweet Inspiration", the first track from his June 1984 5th album "Sailing Blaster" but with different lyrics by Akimoto ("Sweet Inspiration" had Cindy providing the words) and of course, with that different title.

Now, which version came first? Yes, I do realize that February is a long way before June, but after that article on Tetsuji Hayashi's（林哲司）"Back Mirror" over the weekend in which I describe about how his "Rainy Saturday & Coffee Break" was actually recorded before Junko Ohashi's（大橋純子）version although the latter came to the public's ears before the former, I'm no longer 100% sure whether "Telepathy" was released before "Sweet Inspiration" or vice versa. But no matter. I like both versions with Akimoto's take having the more straight-ahead pop arrangement (with Sato on backup vocals) although it begins with a bit of synthpop and contains a bit of that funkiness which really comes out on "Sweet Inspiration".