Christopher Cross -- Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)/Chikuzen Sato -- Tokyo City Serenade（トーキョー・シティ・セレナーデ）

 

All that cackling by Dudley Moore's rich kid Arthur Bach aside, the opening for the 1981 comedy "Arthur" really showed the romantic and sophisticated side of The Big Apple, despite it being known as The World's Most Dangerous City at the time. It was one of the biggest movies of that year, getting four Oscar nominations and winning two, one for Best Supporting Actor for John Gielgud as the incredibly snarky Hobson. I think my brother ended up watching "Arthur" a couple of times, but ironically, I never caught it even once at the theatre, settling for certain scenes on TV reruns. Maybe I wasn't such a Moore fan, although he did get his past acclaim through other comedies such as "Foul Play" and "10".

However, that theme song "Best That You Can Do", which is more popularly known as "Arthur's Theme", has stuck me with me throughout the decades, and I can say that this has also been one of my musical touchstones. "Arthur" had come out midway during my Japanese language school graduation trip in July 1981 and then Christopher Cross' single was released the following month. And as much as I had Yellow Magic Orchestra and Jun Horie's（堀江淳）"Memory Glass" on the brain at the time, the theme song for that movie became another familiar thing to hear on the radio when I returned to Canada.

Although Cross already had a few hits out there such as "Ride Like The Wind" and "Sailing" in the previous year, it was really "Arthur's Theme" that first tugged on my heartstrings when it came to his music. That opening piano, the lush orchestral arrangement and the singer's high-toned boyish voice ensured that the song was cemented in my memories. Thinking of it now, I think that having Cross sing the theme was a mark of genius since his delivery gave a certain child-like quality to "Arthur's Theme" for the movie which was about a figurative kid in a man's body finally growing up. But the song was and is still first-rate urbane romantic melody and that specific lyric about being between the moon and New York City still sends that chill up and down the spine.

Unsurprisingly then, Cross had quite the cream of the crop in terms of collaborators. Burt Bacharach and his wife at the time, Carole Bayer Sager, along with Peter Allen, whose ex-wife Liza Minnelli starred with Moore in "Arthur" all helped in creating the song that earned a Best Original Song Oscar. Then, there were the musicians including Cross: saxophonist Ernie Watts, drummer Jeff Porcaro and guitarist Steve Lukather among other stars. It hit No. 1 on Billboard and No. 2 on RPM in Canada.

The reason that I'm doing this ROY article on a Friday after the usual Thursday one last night was that recently I'd discovered the cover version of "Arthur's Theme" by Sing Like Talking vocalist Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）, and yep, I realize that I did do an SLT article to start off today's spate of articles. I figured that if I was going to give time to Sato's cover, then I might as well give the original by Cross the ROY treatment since I'd been planning to do so sometime.

Now in Japan, "Arthur's Theme" was given the title of "New York City Serenade"（ニューヨーク・シティ・セレナーデ）when it was given its due there, and so Sato's cover has been retitled "Tokyo City Serenade" for his October 2004 album of covers "The Hits ~ Cornerstones 3", which peaked at No. 4 on Oricon. Sato's voice is great as usual but I think that his take on Cross' song gets a tad too ambitious in the rearrangement so the execution isn't 100%.

Speaking of those hits in Japan, I'll give you the Top 3 of August 1981 as reported from the Oricon site.

1. Seiko Matsuda -- Shiroi Parasol （白いパラソル）

2. Yumi Matsutoya -- Mamotte Agetai（守ってあげたい）

3. Jun Horie -- Memory Glass（メモリーグラス）