Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Thursday, April 22, 2021

Lily -- Namida no Dai San Keihin (Ride Away)(涙の第三京浜)

 

The above video by YouTube channel Fix69130 is of Japan Railways' Keihin-Tohoku train in Tokyo characterized by those light blue stripes. I always used to see it on one side of the platform opposite the the other side for the Yamanote Line which was the loop around inner Tokyo.

The reason that I mention one of my old familiar urban sights is because of this song "Namida no Dai San Keihin" (The Tearful No. 3 Keihin). At first, I'd thought that the song had something to do with the train itself but then looking up J-Wiki, I realized that the title is actually referring to the Daisan Keihin Douro(第三京浜道路...The No. 3 Keihin Road), a segment of National Highway No. 466 spanning from the Tamagawa Interchange in Tokyo to the Hodogaya Interchange in Yokohama.

Lily(りりぃ), the late singer-songwriter most famous for her 1974 hit single, "Watashi ga Naiteimasu" (わたしが泣いています), created and recorded "Namida no Dai San Keihin" as her November 1980 single. With a mix of eerie and suspenseful, her lyrics relate a story of a woman trying desperately to contact a (former?) paramour without success. Meanwhile, her music has that relentless guitar chugging away like a revving car engine, and there is something in the arrangement that reminds me of songs that I used to hear from the New Wave rock band The Fixx.

The video below shows the actual Daisan Keihin Douro by hiros. tv channel on YouTube and the ride seems more relaxing and less urgent than the images from the actual song. But from 3:15, the video accelerates to four times the speed, so if you are inclined, you can cut the happy audio here and then play "Namida no Dai San Keihin" over it to get that suspense feeling. Regrettably, not ever having getting a driver's license, I can only drive vicariously through this video.

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