Japan's annual Golden Week holidays came to a close a few hours ago and I hope that everyone there had as good a time as can be had under the current COVID restrictions. Until the pandemic hit, it had all been about Bullet Trains at over 100% capacity, fully booked planes and highways that always became the longest parking lots in the world. For that very reason, Golden Week for me meant stay-cations. In all my time in the country, I never went on any vacation outside of the megalopolis during GW and although the usual tourist areas in Tokyo were fairly crowded, I was happy to walk quite more freely through other areas such as Ginza and Nihonbashi during the holiday period. Things were mellower in the big city.
When I was covering composer/arranger Katsuhisa Hattori's（服部克久）works via a Creator article soon after his passing almost a year ago, I came across one of his creations for the 1980 anime "Tom Sawyer no Bouken"（トム・ソーヤーの冒険...The Adventures of Tom Sawyer） which was the opening theme, "Dare yori mo Tooku e"（誰よりも遠くへ...Farther Than Anyone）, a jaunty contemporary-sounding tune with the addition of that banjo to reflect Tom and his surroundings.
The ending theme is, as would befit the oft-used pattern of lively opening theme and mellow ending theme, has a softer arrangement by Hattori. Titled "Boku no Mississippi" (My Mississippi), once again as well, Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）provided the lyrics while Maron Kusaka（日下まろん）sang it. It does have that feeling of Tom and Huck lying on the grass along the banks of the Mississippi, at least the beginning verses do, before the grand refrain comes out. The full version has some wonderful strings and a romantic electric guitar helping out.
Kusaka herself had a very brief career as an anison singer. In addition to the themes for "Tom Sawyer", she only sang the opening and ending themes for the anime "Wan Wan Sanjuushi"（ワンワン三銃士...Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds） the following year, before deciding to retire.
I remember this song from when i was a kid. If anything, the melody and the beautiful voice of Kusaka Maron lingered in my mind unbeknownst to me for more than 35 years until I revisited the anime and what do you know, its the song from my childhood. Even if i didn't knew (and still don't) speak japanese, the beautiful lyrics and music stuck in my mind and heart for decades as if I just heard it yesterday. Thank you very much for proving me with its singer, title and even a little history.
ReplyDeleteThanks, puxlavoix and my pleasure. It's always nice to re-discover an old chestnut like this one and savor it once more. By the way, that's a nice Saber Lily on display there.
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