Considering how long I lived in the Tokyo area, I probably had been on every subway and railway line at least once. Perhaps, though, I don't think I was ever on the Seibu-Shinjuku Line all that often since I can't remember the stations on that line too well. If I had been on it, it was probably just to take the line between Seibu-Shinjuku Station and the adjacent one, Takadanobaba, not too far away from Waseda University. So, it was a very short ride...nothing of note.
Over the weekend, Rocket Brown of Come Along Radio fame and I had a conversation about singer-songwriter Shogo Hamada（浜田省吾）and then his old band Aido（愛奴）. I had written one article on the latter and a few of the former on the blog over the years. Just out of curiosity, I went over to the Aido file on J-Wiki and discovered their September 1975 second single with the intriguing title of "Koi no Seibu-Shinjuku Sen" (Seibu-Shinjuku Line of Love).
It's pretty much truth-in-advertising here...a couple having a budding romance on the titular line and then the guy inviting the gal to get off at least a station earlier than expected and take the long stroll home. By the way, the video above has Hamada's own self-cover of the song via his December 1979 5th solo album "Kimi ga Jinsei no Toki..."（君が人生の時…You at the Time of Life） and yes, he wrote and composed it.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the original version from 1975 on YouTube but did find an excerpt of it at the Apple site, and it sounds like "Koi no Seibu-Shinjuku Sen" back then was more of a doo-wop number. The 1979 cover also has that feeling but it looks like Kimio Mizutani's（水谷公生）arrangement on the album has added a bit more seaside AOR flavour as well. And is that Haruko Kuwana（桑名晴子）providing the lovely backup (love the guitar solo, too)? "Kimi ga Jinsei no Toki...", by the way, peaked at No. 25 on Oricon.
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