Rie Ida & 42nd Street -- Silver Airline（シルバー・エアライン）

 

Well, this time around, the gap has been considerably longer but allow me to welcome back Rie Ida（井田リエ）& 42nd Street once more to the files of "Kayo Kyoku Plus". I provided a couple of their tunes back in 2019: "Party wo Nukedashite"（パーティーを抜け出して）and "Love Time Good Time"（ラブ・タイム・グッド・タイム）.

Ida and her band provided some of that old-fashioned American soul music via City Pop, and this time I bring you "Silver Airline", the first track on 42nd Street's 1980 album "Step In My Heart". Written by Naoko Nishio（西尾尚子）and composed by Yoshihiro Yonekura（米倉良広）, compared to the already mentioned and bouncy "Love Time Good Time", which was the 2nd track on this release, "Silver Airline" is a more contemplative and beautiful piece talking of someone's perhaps bittersweet departure from the Big Apple. I would have thought that this would have taken up the third spot in the Side A lineup or even the final track on Side B...not that I'm complaining, mind you.

When I first saw the title of the song, "Silver Airline", my mind immediately thought of what I think is the unofficial logo of the genre of City Pop, that airplane taking off for places exotic and unknown (although I usually conjure up California or Hawaii). It's a bit ironic then that this particular starter for "Step In My Heart" is about actually leaving one of those dream cities in the City Pop realm. Anyways, those stirring strings and bluesy sax make for a fine accompaniment as the titular plane leaves LaGuardia or JFK.