Yokohama Fantasy（横浜幻想） -- Disc 2

 

To continue on from where I left off with Disc 1 of this special 2-CD compilation album based on Yokohama-themed songs, I'm covering Disc 2 of "Yokohama Fantasy". This time around, it was a little more difficult to track down some of the songs since once again I've covered a few of them already and others don't exist on YouTube. Also, I'd still like to write about at least one of the tracks through its own article. Well, without further ado then:

1. Bay Bridge Serenade -- Shogo Hamada (ベイ・ブリッジ・セレナーデ）

2. Oikakete Yokohama -- Miyuki Nakajima (追いかけてヨコハマ）

3. YOKOHAMA Twilight Time 〜20th Anniversary Version〜 Toshiki Kadomatsu

4. Umi wo Miteita Gogo -- Hi-Fi Set (海を見ていた午後）

5. Aki no Kehai -- Noriyuki Makihara (秋の気配）

6. Boku wa Hitori de Umi ni Itta -- Masaaki Fujioka (僕は一人で海に行った）

7. Peking Duck -- Haruomi Hosono (北京ダック）

8. Yokohama -- Makoto Saito (横浜）

9. Yokohama Bay Blues -- Yoshitaka Minami

10. Minato no Mieru Oka -- Princess Princess (港の見える丘）

11. Blue Light Yokohama （Ambient Version） -- Tomoko Tane (ブルーライト・ヨコハマ)

12. Yokohama Stadium -- Iruka (横浜スタジアム）

13. Nee -- Shuuji Kuniyasu (ねぇ）

14. Yokohama Nissan Marinos Fight On! -- B.R.B. (日産マリノス FIGHT ON!）

Shogo Hamada's（浜田省吾）"Bay Bridge Serenade" is an acapella ballad with him and the rest of the guys about a fellow taking that long lonely drive in the middle of the night and then stopping on Yokohama Bay Bridge to look at the bright lights and big city. Hamada's lyrics (he also composed the music) give the impression that the poor guy is about to give up on that lady love of his and move on with the rest of his life. But dang, if he's not going to make that final night one big beautiful doo-wop of a song.

"Bay Bridge Serenade" was a track on his September 1993 album "Sono Eien no Ichi Byo ni"（その永遠の一秒に 〜The Moment Of The Moment〜）which hit No. 1 on Oricon and quickly ended up as the 13th-ranked release of the year. By 1996, it had racked up a little over 895,000 copies in sale.

Then we have singer-songwriter Makoto Saito's（斎藤誠）"Yokohama" from his February 2002 album "Careless Memories" which is a very pretty love song. It's solidly in the pop vein and with the strings and Saito's guitar both in the arrangement, "Yokohama" can both take place in a rooftop restaurant or in front of a beach campfire although the instrumental bridge kicks things up a notch into the stratosphere.

One other track that I'll be profiling here is one that I'd already noted back in the article for Disc 1. This is singer-songwriter Tomoko Tane's（種ともこ）own version of the classic kayo "Blue Light Yokohama" as originally done by Ayumi Ishida（いしだあゆみ）back in 1968. I'd already provided another article on a cover of the song recently through former Speed member Takako Uehara（上原多香子）in 2004.

According to the J-Wiki article on "Yokohama Fantasy", Tane had released a couple of her takes on "Blue Light Yokohama" in 1991 with the first being a single version that I don't think I can find on YouTube. Perhaps that was the more straight-ahead version since the one that is included in the 2004 compilation and Tane's September 1991 album "Kiss of Life" is known as the Ambient version. And indeed, it is a pretty chill-out take with its own rearrangement by Yasuharu Konishi（小西康陽）. In fact, next to Konishi's contribution, his other partner from Pizzicato Five, the divine Ms. Maki Nomiya（野宮真貴）, gives an introductory narration of the eventual end of a romance in the port city.

To be honest, when I first heard this version, I did go "Huh?!" but that was more me initially getting all old-fogey about it, but now that I've heard Tane's cover a few times, it's settling in much more nicely now. In any case, if you do get a chance, be a little more ambitious as a tourist and cover even more of Yokohama than I have.