Yuji Oda -- Utaenakatta Love Song（歌えなかったラヴ・ソング）

 

I'd been wondering when I would finally get to use the Yuji Oda（織田裕二）photo. Well, tonight's the night! When it comes to Oda's file on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I figured that it was going to be a short one since I've really only known him for his acting and despite having a fairly long discography, the only song that had ever really gotten my attention was his contribution of his duet with Maxi Priest, "Love Somebody", as the theme for one of his most famous dramas, the 1997 "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線....Bayside Shakedown）. 

However, I was able to find his 3rd single from February 1991, "Utaenakatta Love Song" (The Love Song I Couldn't Sing). Written by Aki Mana（真名杏樹）and composed by Takashi Tsushimi（都志見隆）, it's got an amiable pop-rock rhythm and aside from the synths, I couldn't help but feel that the song was arranged sounding like a very upbeat number created and performed by another singer with the same initials as Oda: Yutaka Ozaki（尾崎豊）. Mind you, Ozaki had the better chops. 

I mentioned in the "Love Somebody" article that its lyrics reflected the personality of Oda's role in "Odoru Dai Sosasen", the noble if somewhat goofy Officer Aoshima. Well, perhaps "Utaenakatta Love Song" could describe a happier and naive Kanji Nagao, his character from another earlier and famous Fuji-TV drama "Tokyo Love Story"（東京ラブストーリー）. Interestingly enough, the single was released midway through the original run of that popular show though it had nothing to do with it, but I felt that the lyrics reflecting on a guy just starting out on his working life was Kanji-kun about to take off from his home prefecture of Ehime to Tokyo to begin an exciting new chapter as an employee at Heart Sports, before he ran into that sticky love triangle with Rika and Satomi.

"Utaenakatta Love Song" may not have had anything to do with "Tokyo Love Story", but it was picked up to be the commercial tune for the Suzuki Cervo which Oda helped promote. According to J-Wiki, the song was Oda's first Top 10 hit by landing at No. 2 and it ended up as the 14th-ranked single of 1991, selling over 500,000 copies. An acoustic version of it is available on his March 1991 album "On The Road". As of 2019, "Utaenakatta Love Song" remains as Oda's most successful single. One more piece of trivia, the arranger was none other than Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）who would later come up with the soundtrack for "Odoru Dai Sosasen".