Goro Noguchi -- Onna ni Natte Denaose yo（女になって出直せよ）

 

NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）returned to the NHK Shibuya studio for the first time in over a year, and last Tuesday's episode devoted some of its time to the guitar-wielding singing stars such as veteran Goro Noguchi（野口五郎）. In fact, along with one other singer-musician, we even got a bit of a City Pop segment for about 5 minutes or so.

Noguchi performed a number that I hadn't heard before. "Onna ni Natte Denaose yo" (Become a Woman and Start Fresh) was his 31st single which got released in July 1979. Despite it being labeled an aidoru tune on J-Wiki, it's still quite the disco bop showing off the good times in Tokyo, pre-Bubble Era. Created by the dream tandem of lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, the song's narrative is told from the perspective of a young man who has witnessed a childhood friend (for whom he may still harbour feelings) grow up into a fine beautiful woman ready to take on the world. Maybe they will never become an item, but he's happy enough seeing her do well in life. So gracious!😂

I almost forgot to mention that Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）took care of the arrangement. "Onna ni Natte Denaose yo" reached No. 17 on Oricon. By the way, that's quite the intriguing cover on the single showing young Goro being chauffeured to a new house in California (at least, I'm thinking it's somewhere in the Golden State). City Pop was also about the exciting lifestyle overseas.