Off-Course/Chikuzen Sato/Bank Band -- Umarekuru Kodomo-tachi no Tame ni（生まれ来る子供たちのために）

 

I'll probably have to put out a warning right here and say that this song and its covers will most likely have readers come down with a bad case of excess lacrimal fluid output (Google it). I am talking about Off-Course's（オフコース）18th single released in March 1980, "Umarekuru Kodomo-tachi no Tame ni" (For the Sake of the Children to be Born).

The intro really preps listeners since it feels like the coming of an especially tenderhearted ballad, and of course (no pun intended), vocalist and songwriter Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）can wring tears out of a block of granite with that voice of his. According to the J-Wiki article for the song, he had been wondering about where Japan was heading after what had come before, probably referring to the war and the postwar rebuilding, and perhaps he wasn't completely satisfied. 

"Umarekuru Kodomo-tachi no Tame ni" did only modestly on the Oricon charts by peaking at No. 48. However, I think that it is the perfect song to contemplate our time, place and status on Earth, and 42 years after its release, it still contains plenty of resonance. The song also showed up on the band's "Three and Two" released in October 1979 which hit No. 2.

Oda's friend, Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）from Sing Like Talking, did a cover of the song as his 5th solo single in November 2002. It's also a track on "Cornerstones 2", the second album in his series of covers which was released a month later and hit No. 14.

Then a few years later in November 2005, there was another cover of "Umarekuru Kodomo-tachi no Tame ni" done by Bank Band as their first limited digital download single. Bank Band has been around since 2004 as this super band centering around Mr. Children vocalist Kazutoshi Sakurai（桜井和寿）and music producer Takeshi Kobayashi（小林武史）on keyboards. Their cover was used as the ending theme for the 2005 live-action TV version of the famous "Hotaru no Haka"（火垂るの墓...Grave of the Fireflies） whose anime has probably reduced the toughest drill sergeants into puddles of brine. I can't even imagine what this song and this drama did to viewers. Still, out of the three listed here in this article, I just have to go with the original Off-Course single.