The above is a photo of the classy Mito Station Hotel in Mito City. I stayed there for one night during my 2017 trip to Japan since I was returning from a brief anime pilgrimage in Oarai where "Girls und Panzer" was set. Hopefully, the management there didn't look too down upon me for showing any otaku tendencies.
Well, this song did give me some classy hotel vibes from long ago. This is "Koibito-tachi" (The Lovers) which was one of the few original songs on Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）first album of cover tunes from March 1979, itself titled "Koibito-tachi". Leading the album off, the title track is a silky-smooth melancholy song that has had me thinking about not only life in the city but the sophisticated aspects of the upper tax bracket lifestyle. In the song, a lady is pining for the love of her life but he's all the way off on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles. Maybe she's sighing breath prints on the window of an expensive hotel bar while sipping a cocktail in Tokyo. According to J-Wiki, the slogan for the album was "A romantic Europe for you...". OK, well, maybe it can also be a cruise liner in the Mediterranean.
The title track was written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）. Even by this point, Iwasaki was still being listed as an aidoru but dang, this is a pretty mature-sounding song. I had actually first heard "Koibito-tachi" on a 1984 compilation audiotape of her hits so I assumed that it was a more recent song.
In August 2019, Iwasaki released a self-cover album titled "Dear Friends VIII" which was a tribute to the songs of Tsutsumi who would pass away a little more than a year later. "Koibito-tachi" was also given a new contemplative bossa nova arrangement thanks to Hiroshi Uesugi（上杉洋史）.
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