Kumiko -- Ai shika nai Toki（愛しかないとき）

 

The above photo here is of the main hall inside the Tokyo International Forum, just north of Ginza. I used to walk around here fairly frequently although I never got to see a concert or a movie in the facility. Still, the visit was worth it just to marvel at the architecture inside. Unfortunately, I didn't get to do so until today, but last Tuesday's episode of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）was the final one to be held at TIF which had served as the program's Tokyo home for the past one year and change while renovations were being made to NHK's main hall in Shibuya. So, it was a pretty poignant episode with the hosts giving a fond farewell to TIF.

Well, then I thought that it would be appropriate to put up a song that was just as poignant that also had its due on that episode last week. The singer Kumiko（クミコ）has made many appearances on "Uta Con" but this is the chanson singer's first time on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Making her debut in 1982 under her real name of Kumiko Takahashi（高橋久美子）, she went with the shortened Kumiko starting from around 2000. In her early years, she had also appeared at one of the temples of chanson in Japan, Ginza's own Gin Pari（銀巴里）, a venerable chanson café that lasted almost 40 years between 1951 and 1990.

The song that she sang on the Tokyo International Forum stage last week was "Ai shika nai Toki" which is the Japanese title for the original "Quand on n'a que l'amour" (When Love is All You Have) by Belgian singer Jacques Brel in 1957. Kumiko's version came out as a single just a couple of weeks ago, although it was also the title track in a 2003 album. I figure that since the video above was put up last September that it is the 2003 take with the one below being of the recent version.

I don't know very much about the genre of chanson but I think Kumiko's cover of the song has a more "softly, softly" approach when compared to the usual proud and strident tones that I usually associate chanson with.