Haruo Chikada & Vibratones -- Sofa Bed Blues（ソファーベッド・ブルース）

 

Crashing at friends' places over the years, I've had my sleep sessions on sofa beds. Heck, my family has had a sofa bed so that whenever relatives came to visit Toronto, I got to sleep on it in the living room back when I was a teenager. I have to say that it was rather firm...an intriguing experience.😑

What has been another intriguing experience is listening to this track "Sofa Bed Blues" from Haruo Chikada & Vibratones'（近田春夫&ビブラトーンズ）1981 album "Midnight Pianist". What starts out as this supremely funky strut in the opening verses jumps into this proud refrain of City Pop and disco which even segues briefly into samba. Chikada may not have the strongest voice but he and his band more than make up for it here with the potpourri of styles within this less-than-four-minute song. And even when he sings that refrain, I also suddenly get some feelings of Omega Tribe（オメガトライブ）when Carlos Toshiki was behind the mike.

I also have another track covered from "Midnight Pianist", "Kinyoubi no Tenshi"（金曜日の天使）, which is more of a New Wave tune. For "Sofa Bed Blues", Chikada came up with the lyrics while his fellow Vibratone Yutaka Fukuoka（福岡ユタカ）composed the melody.