Yuko Kawai -- Toyo Bisho（東洋微笑）

 

OK, I'll have to confess it here. I'm one of the number of folks who have been catching the latest adventures of the various supremely cheerful weather forecasters at Japan's Weathernews on YouTube. I realize that I'm only catching bits and pieces of their broadcasts but sometimes I wonder if they're not so much giving out the weather information as they are chatting and giggling away. Still, during the darkest days of the pandemic, it's been quite the miracle to have our moods lightened by having them go through laughing fits over microwave ovens leading to alternate worlds, verbal slip-ups, and poking fun at some of the other staffers.

Well, just the preamble that I need to segue into "Toyo Bisho" (Oriental Smile), a song from singer-songwriter Yuko Kawai's（河合夕子）1982 album "Fujiyama Paradise"（フジヤマパラダイス）and also its own single from the same year. Though I haven't seen much of her performing through the YouTube videos, my take from what I have seen and that gorgeous cover of her looking rather ginger, I think that if Kawai had been born some years later and opted for a more meteorologically-based career, she could have easily slipped into Weathernews.

However as it is, I'm happy that she went into a more musical direction since "Toyo Bisho" definitely has that bouncy toyo disco feeling filtered through technopop that made me think YMO for a minute. Actually, though, it was written and composed by Kawai with Masao Urino（売野政男）also helping out on the lyrics.