Yutaka Kimura Speaks ~ Japanese City Pop Masterpieces 100: Mariya Takeuchi -- Gosenshi（五線紙）

 

Number: 029

Lyricist: Takashi Matsumoto

Composer/Arranger: Yasuhiro Abe

From Takeuchi's 1980 album: "Love Songs"

"Gosenshi"（Music Paper） is a song that came out exactly 10 years after Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）had expressed the world of the "windy city" through Happy End（はっぴいえんど）. I feel that he brought together the complete transformation of the cityscape through his lyrics of "The ten years have been the same/Even the shadows of the city are coloured in dreams", and at the same time, that boy from his novel "Binetsu Shonen"（微熱少年...The Slightly Feverish Boy）* has all grown up. The sumptuous melody by Yasuhiro Abe（安部恭弘）as well as the light swing arrangement has led to a marvelous work befitting the 10th anniversary of City Pop.

*Matsumoto's novel is a coming-of-age story that was first published in the mid-1970s and then made into a film in 1987.

Hi, J-Canuck here! Try out the scintillating cover by Abe himself.

The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).