As an end credit sequence might go: Any similarities between this song and Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade" is purely coincidental.
Well, as Colonel Potter from "MASH" would say, that's a load of bull hockey. Yosuke Tagawa's（太川陽介）May 1979 10th single "Moonlight Carnival" is giving a clear tribute to one of Miller's trademark tunes from time to time in the arrangement and with half of the title. Being a fan of "Moonlight Serenade" especially because of the clarinets (which I used to play), I don't particularly mind the melodic shoutout per se.
Written by Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞）and composed by Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）, "Moonlight Carnival" partially answers the question of "How would 'Moonlight Serenade' sound as a disco tune?". It's not really a silly query since I knew that there were a lot of old songs that were getting the disco treatment (those strings, man) back then ranging from John Williams' "Star Wars" to the "I Love Lucy" theme. But as I said above, it's just a partial answer since Mori, Hirao and arranger Tachio Akano（あかのたちお）use the hints of "Moonlight Serenade" as bookends while whipping up a melody of romance among the stars and disco ball dance halls in Roppongi. It's all happy and gleaming Tokyo.
I did forget that "Moonlight Carnival" was the longest-lived theme song for NHK's legendary music program for the young, "Let's Go Young"（レッツゴーヤング）. The show lasted between 1974 and 1985 with "Moonlight Carnival" headlining each episode from 1979.
レッツゴーヤング looks like a fun energetic show! I NHK needs to something similar today to spicy out their board cast offerings. Music Station (not NHK) started in 1986 shortly after "Let's go young" stopped airing in 1985. Although I tend to think of Music station as being more in the legacy of shows like "the best ten" and "the top ten" .
ReplyDeleteI think "Music Station" is quite different in approach to "Let's Go Young" (the staging is more intimate with the former). I haven't watched "Music Station" in some years now so I don't know whether they still do the Top 10 rankings. They used to do it, so yeah, I agree that "Music Station" was more along the lines of "The Best Ten".
DeleteYeah, they still do the top tens for the week and occasionally they will have a special where they cover the top of genre, period, or age group.
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