Ami Ozaki -- Fuyu no Poster（冬のポスター）

 

Well, it was quite the opening on "Uta Con"（うたコン）tonight, especially for an old Japanese pop fan like me. Arisa Mizuki（観月ありさ）, who I first saw as this tall and lanky teen in the beginning of the 90s making waves as a model and an actress, was singing her hit debut song, the relaxing "Densetsu no Shojo"（伝説の少女）. Backing her up on the piano was the songwriter behind it, singer Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）. Because it's been a few decades since that one came out, I'm sure that both Mizuki and Ozaki have performed it together on stage and TV, but it was the first time for me to see the tandem in action.

Then, to add the cherry on top of this sundae, Ozaki returned to perform one of her own beloved songs, the bossa nova-influenced "My Pure Lady"（マイ・ピュア・レディ）, her 3rd single from February 1977. I hadn't known that her husband was bassist Rei Ohara（小原礼）, who has been a member of many groups but most notably Sadistic Mika Band（サディスティック・ミカ・バンド）in the 1970s, but there he was playing right by her.

As such, I thought that I would put up an Ozaki song (and I'm now currently thinking of posting a Creator article on her, but that's something for later), so I'm going with, "Fuyu no Poster" (A Winter Poster), her B-side to her March 1976 debut single, "Meisou"（冥想...Contemplation）. In contrast with the sunny and upbeat A-side, "Fuyu no Poster" is a quieter and more introspective song written and composed by Ozaki with Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）handling the arrangement along with the keyboard work including a Moog synthesizer.

On seeing the title, I figured from the word of winter and the release date of the single that Xmas wasn't really on Ozaki's mind. Instead, the season takes it further beyond the traditional kayo matching of the ending of romance and the autumn. A young lady on a blustery winter day is staring at a worn poster on some pole while a stiff wind is about to tear it off completely and blow it helplessly into the sky. The lady analogizes the scene to her own circumstances following a romantic breakup, and from the slightly ragged delivery by Ozaki, the woman herself is about to be forced to let go of the happier days of the past and be flown into an uncertain and (hopefully temporarily) colder immediate future. Grabbing the meaning from the A-side's title, there is some feeling of hard-won wisdom and contemplation, and along with Matsutoya's arrangement including the horns, that comes across like The Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".