Takashi Hosokawa -- Oki Tegami（置き手紙）

 

As with the previous article for Saori Minami's（南沙織）"Kizutsuku Sedai"（傷つく世代）, enka singer Takashi Hosokawa's（細川たかし）performance of "Oki Tegami" (The Letter I Left For You) is a song that I heard for the first time on that same episode of "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）where I saw Minami perform her song.

"Oki Tegami" was Hosokawa's 5th single from July 1976 and despite the proud and jaunty arrangement by Tachio Okano（あかのたちお）, the song written and composed by Koji Tokuhisa（徳久広司）is a sad one about a woman reluctantly but necessarily ending an affair with a Dear John letter included with some mild warnings about his health. From the "Yoru no Hit Studio" performance and the listening to the above recorded version, I did think that there was some resemblance melodically with Hosokawa's famous hit debut "Kokoro Nokori"（心のこり）from 1975 and it turns out that arranger Okano was the guy in charge of that song, too, although the lyricist and composer were different.

If I'm not mistaken, the video below is right out of that "Yoru no Hit Studio" episode itself. In recent years, Hosokawa has come out on shows like "Uta Con"（うたコン）in the most flamboyant of Japanese garb, but back in the day, he used to be in those really sober-sided suits.