Yasuhiro Kido -- Mr. Music

 

From penning this week's ROY article on Little River Band's "Reminiscing", I did find another single that came out in June 1978 but didn't include it among the three Japanese pop songs that I usually provide at the bottom of the piece because I had yet to even write about that one here. Well, I'm writing about it now.

I have already provided articles on a couple of tracks from singer-songwriter Yasuhiro Kido's（木戸やすひろ）first album "Kid" from 1978: "Kimi ga Soba ni Ireba"（君がそばにいれば）and "Love Magic". Well, I'm now also including the first track "Mr. Music" which was Kido's debut single, too. 

With Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）providing the lyrics, Kido's melody has been said on one site to be similar to Sugar Babe's（シュガーベイブ）"Parade"（パレード）, and indeed there is that similarity and that feeling of happy-go-lucky walking on the park path. However before I read that comment on that site, I had my own opinions on what "Mr. Music" sounded like. I can compare it to either The Monkees' "Daydream Believer" or a certain Electric Light Orchestra song which I cannot remember right now. Anyways, "Mr. Music" really does come across as fresh and innocent as a boy running around with a butterfly net in the summer, especially with that title of "Kid" on the album and the cute album cover with those toys.