Hirofumi Bamba -- Mayonaka no Lonely Heart（真夜中のロンリーハート）

 

It's been close to a decade since I actually wrote up about a song by folk singer and radio personality Hirofumi Bamba（ばんばひろふみ）. It was for his 1979 "Sachiko", arguably his most famous tune and a song so warm and honeyed that it could have evolved into a kitten,

So it was with some surprise that I encountered "Mayonaka no Lonely Heart" (Midnight Lonely Heart), his 14th single from September 1985. Now doing this blog, I have come to realize that several singers from the 1970s folk scene did make their leaps into City Pop and the like including Kingo Hamada（濱田金吾）and Iruka（イルカ）. However, knowing Bamba basically just for "Sachiko", I hadn't realized that he also went into another genre, but it wasn't City Pop but more of an 80s West Coast pop/rock thing with "Mayonaka no Lonely Heart".

Written by Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）and composed by Bamba himself with arrangement by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）, his familiar high and floaty vocals are still there but this time, they're surrounded by an electric guitar, crashing synthesizers and snappy drums. I even imagine Bamba riding a Harley deep in the city as the song is playing. Apparently, "Mayonaka no Lonely Heart" was the theme song for a Kansai TV program "Endless Night".