Crystal King -- Cecile（セシル）

 

Ahh...just a couple of more days before summer officially comes to an end for 2022. I'm sure that there are many out there who lamenting the end of the season, especially those sun worshippers here in Toronto considering that for a lot of the year, we seem to be swathed in perpetual cold and the odd snowstorm. Well, those are the breaks for the city whose meteorological makeup is predictably unpredictable.

Then, allow me to provide some final summery solace with Crystal King's（クリスタル・キング）"Cecile". Yeah, it's been a long time since I've put up an article about one of their songs so I'm happy to bring them back. Dreamy "Cecile" was their 8th official single from July 1982, and it's been categorized as a New Music tune on J-Wiki, but I also think that it's quite the AOR piece about mooning over a woman named Cecile.

One thing that stands out with "Cecile" is that it's neither the supremely high-pitched Masayuki Tanaka（田中昌之）nor co-vocalist Monsieur Yoshizaki（ムッシュ吉崎）, the two band members behind their biggest hit, "Dai Tokai"（大都会）, who was the main vocalist here (although Tanaka does pop up now and then). It was in fact composer and guitarist Michio Yamashita（山下三智夫）behind the microphone this time round with Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）coming up with the lyrics. Singer-songwriter Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）was responsible for the arrangement that seems to bring up images of sunshine, seashore, and beach chair. "Cecile" managed to peak at No. 33 on Oricon.