Masanori Sera & Twist -- Hikigane（銃爪）

 

It's Hump Day today so I figure that Wednesday would be that day when the stresses of life are at their maximum. Meteorologically, folks in Florida are probably going through heightened versions of this because Hurricane Ian is literally knocking on the door as I write this. I'm hoping that everyone is doing OK down south.

Neither psychology nor psychiatry is my strong suit at all, but I do wonder whether the application of rock music helps in alleviating some of that stress; y'know, with primal screams and all. As such, to start off this day on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I have rocker Masanori Sera & Twist's（世良公則&ツイスト）3rd single, "Hikigane" which was released in August 1978. By the way, I threw the word hikigane into the various online translation engines and all I got was "gun claw", so as of this writing, I'm assuming that this might mean "trigger" (although looking at the article for the song, the term was something coined purely by Sera). This might be OK for "Hikigane" since Sera's lyrics seem to talk about a guy ready to pull a trigger on a relationship that has ended up rather toxic; well, as long as the gun is more figurative than literal.

Sera was also responsible for the grinding and grouchy music, reflecting the protagonist's willingness to dump the lass and past circumstances most dramatically into the nearest garbage pail. On Oricon, "Hikigane" reached No. 1 on the singles chart and ended up as the No. 17 single of the year. It did even better on the chart for "The Best 10"（ザ・ベストテン）since not only did it hit No. 1 there for their weeklies, but it hit No. 1 for the year after its feat of staying at the top spot for 10 weeks straight, the 2nd-longest streak in the show's history following Akira Terao's （寺尾聰）"Ruby no Yubiwa"（ルビーの指輪）at 12 consecutive weeks a few years later.

"Hikigane" also helped nominate Sera for a Best New Artist prize at the Japan Record Awards, an accolade that he declined. He didn't even bother showing up at the ceremony which sounds like a totally rock thing to do.