I gotta admit that this article is gonna make my Boxing Day. I could never imagine that there would be a connection between a George C. Scott movie and a song by a Japanese avant-garde technopop band. Now, I know the legendary late actor for "Dr. Strangelove" and "Patton" but I barely remember his 1980 "The Changeling" which, according to Wikipedia, was a Canadian supernatural horror film. The only reason that I could still remember it more than four decades later is that Scott was in it.
As for that Japanese connection, I was reading Hikashu's（ヒカシュー）J-Wiki article when I found out that their 3rd single from December 1980, "Pike", was used as an image song when "The Changeling" came over to Japan. It was an interesting decision to be sure, since vocalist Koichi Makigami's (巻上公一) lyrics seem to be about the actual fish known as a pike, indigenous to North America and a fine catch for any fisherman.
Hikashu member Yasushi Yamashita's（山下康）music has got quite a bit going on with technopop, New Wave and rock hitting my ears and memories. The seeming surf rock passages with the rolling drum thunder strike me as being somewhat B-52s while the rest of the music has that spooky yet tongue-in-cheek Halloween feeling which may have been one reason that it was selected for "The Changeling". Meanwhile, the vocals sound like something delivered in a tokusatsu series: loud and proud for the title character. It's no wonder that I've been coming across this particular title whenever Hikashu's name is mentioned.
Considering the overall feel of "Pike", I'm always going to imagine the large and slender fish of volatility, and not a certain Starfleet captain of coolness and good.
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