Akina Nakamori -- Good-bye My Tears

 

Years ago, I mentioned in an article for 80s aidoru and tarento Akiko Matsumoto（松本明子）that I had the opportunity to visit her home through a friend who was teaching Ms. Matsumoto's son English. Though the celebrity has mellowed out in the last several years and certainly when she had us over at her place, she was very self-effacing and hospitable, my impression of her on screen was always of the zany television personality.

From TBS

My lone contact with Ms. Matsumoto may probably be the only connection that I have with Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）aside from the many albums, singles and videos that I have of the famed 80s aidoru-turned-pop superstar and actress. In 1998, she and Nakamori co-starred in a TBS comedy titled "Shichi-nin no OL Sommelier"（七人のOLソムリエ...The Seven Office Lady Sommeliers）. The two of them played former flight attendants who received their qualifications in professional winetasting and started up their own wine bar, only for one of them to fly the coop to France. Hilarity ensues.

By this point, my interest in J-Dramas was pretty much non-existent despite a promising beginning in the late 1980s but I do remember seeing Nakamori getting a lot of roles in very dark dramas. However, judging from what I've seen of her in music shows and variety programs, I knew that she had the potential to hit a funny bone, so I was glad that she could get a role in something far lighter.

Not surprisingly, Nakamori was called upon to provide the theme song for "Shichi-nin no OL Sommelier", and this was the coupling song for her 37th single "Tomadoi"（とまどい...Confusion） released in September 1998. "Good-bye My Tears" is a pop/rock number that I thought was pretty intense for a comedy but most likely fit Nakamori's music sense at the time. Written by Nobuko Hokari（帆苅伸子）and composed by Rika Hanno（半野りか）, I think that the steely-eyed song could probably match the motley duo of Nakamori and Matsumoto even better if they were to be cast as hardened detectives someday.