Tatsuro Yamashita -- Boku no Naka no Shonen（僕の中の少年）

 

Well, it took me about six months after writing about the lead track, "Neo Tokyo Rhapsody"（新・東京ラプソディー）but I finally got my copy of Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"Boku no Naka no Shonen" (The Boy in Me) album which was released in October 1988. Not surprisingly, this was another No. 1 hit for the singer-songwriter and it went Double Platinum. Rocket Brown and JM The Bard gave their own review on "Boku no Naka no Shonen" back in May so give that video a listen as well.

But this article is all about my take on this winner which is notable for the observation that it strikes me as being a transitional one in terms of Tats' stylings. As I mentioned in the article for "Neo Tokyo Rhapsody", "Boku no Naka no Shonen" was no longer really a City Pop entry like his albums from the late 1970s going into the 1980s. The pendulum swung a bit more into the straight pop and R&B territory although with all of the Yamashita flourishes such as the falsetto, vocal layering, hook-laden melodies intact. Speaking of "Neo Tokyo Rhapsody", I've already spoken on one other track from the album, the soulful and even elegiac "Soubou"（蒼氓）, and Marcos V. gave his contribution through the track "Odoroyo, Fish" (踊ろよ、フィッシュ) several years ago.

"Get Back in Love" isn't only the 2nd track following "Neo Tokyo Rhapsody", it was also Yamashita's 17th single from April 1988, released half a year before "Boku no Naka no Shonen" was itself released. The theme song for the TBS-produced drama "Kaigan Monogatari Mukashi Mitai ni..."（海岸物語 昔みたいに…Coastline Stories...Like in the Old Days）, I think that it prefaced the pop balladry that he would demonstrate with songs such as "Sayonara Natsu no Hi"（さよなら夏の日...Goodbye Summer Days) and "Endless Game" which would pop up on his following studio album "Artisan" in 1991.

Reaching No. 6 on Oricon, the liner notes in the album has Yamashita saying that being in his mid-30s at the time, he no longer felt like creating those uptempo Resort Pop songs from some years beforehand and was more in the ballad mood. Also during that period, according to the writeup on J-Wiki for the album, Yamashita was also helping out on Masayuki Suzuki's（鈴木雅之）"Radio Days" sophomore solo album and may have been considering the song for Martin. However, Martin's director told the songwriter that "Get Back In Love" was really more for Yamashita to sing. Still, I would love to hear The King of Love Songs give his rendition of this one. In any case, "Get Back In Love" is a great end-of-summer tune and the electric sitar that Tats also plays gives it a nostalgic 1970s twist.

"The Girl in White" all came about when Suntory Whiskey came knocking to ask if Yamashita could come up with a commercial tune for their Suntory White as performed by the acapella group 14 Karat Soul. The version here by Tats is the cover and it was also the coupling song for the single "Neo Tokyo Rhapsody".  I'm not sure how sales for Suntory White did afterwards but try to imagine how excited the company's Marketing division must have been on learning that Tats would create one of their jingles. However this time, it wasn't just the singer on songwriting duties; his friend Alan O'Day would provide the lyrics. One interesting point that Yamashita also makes is that he thought the finished product was something that late 50s/early 60s American singer-songwriter Dion would perform through a technopop filter.

(cover version)

"Samui Natsu"（寒い夏...The Cold Summer） is another collaboration with Tats but this time, his songwriting partner was also his partner in life, Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）, on the lyrics. For me, this is also one of my highlights because of the overall arrangement, said to be based on the works by singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb, including the sublime strings provided by Katsuhisa Hattori/服部克久 (it's because of those strings that I get reminded of Pet Shop Boys' "Liberation"). This lush ballad is also a very melancholy one in that a man remembers that Thursday morning when the romance came to an abrupt end.

The final song on Side A of the original LP is "Odoroyo, Fish" and as noted above, Marcos V. gave his two cents about Tats' 16th single from May 1987. I also had a personal connection to it since it was a song that I used to hear either through a segment on either the Fuji-TV morning news show or the following "Ponkikies"（ポンキッキーズ）kids' program. And why not? It's just a happy beach tune although I remember from a few paragraphs previously that the singer was tired of doing those sorts of songs but instead of some kids asking for the tune, it was All Nippon Airways making the request for their annual Okinawa campaign. Maybe after getting "Odoroyo, Fish" done, Tats said to himself, "OK, that's it! I'm done with the upbeat Resort Pop". As it was, the single peaked at No. 19.

"Luminescence" is an atmospheric beginning to Side B with Yamashita handling all of the instruments save Koki Ito（伊藤広規）on electric bass. According to both J-Wiki and the album's liner notes, the tune was brought to fruition when Tats had come back home from a very late night of recording and was walking the dog just before sunrise. He suddenly saw the constellation of Orion in the summer which surprised the heck out of him. 

One thing that I've always admired about the singer has been bringing in instruments that I would no longer have associated with a contemporary pop song such as a glockenspiel that I'd thought was something that belonged to the 1960s with DeVol. But Tats plays it here and I think it really adds some fascinating spice to "Marmalade Goodbye" which begins with one stomping bass by Ito again and is further carried by Shigeo Fuchino's（淵野繁雄）tenor sax. "Marmalade Goodbye" was created for a 1988 Honda Integra commercial and apparently Tats got the inspiration for it through Jack Nicholson's "Five Easy Pieces".

The final track and title track was also commissioned for the Honda Integra back in 1986, and as the title hints at, the song does talk about boyhood but also about the man's parting from it after becoming a parent himself. Yamashita states that he was of the postwar generation which begat Japan's moratorium society and the concept of eternal boyhood, but all that changed when he and Mariya had their baby daughter. The song might be something along the lines of "OK, I've grown up...now what?". The music itself is appropriately introspective and fun to listen to as the singer handles all of the instruments. I also enjoyed the Tats harmonies but when I first heard "Boku no Naka no Shonen", I was slightly taken off course with that ending that begins a little after three minutes. It sounds like a toy drum parade with an electric organ and supposedly he had wanted to come up with something distinctive along the lines of The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" or The Rascals' "Once Upon A Dream". In addition, Tats was also very interested in emulating a drum roll realistically through a computer which seems kinda reminiscent of Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and Hiroshi Sato's（佐藤博）fascination of bringing together technology and music.

In any case, I have another proud Tatsuro Yamashita to add to the collection.