Anzen Chitai -- First Love Twice

 

For all of those Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）fans as well as any casual purveyors of Japanese pop and rock in the 1980s, do you remember "Remember to Remember"? Yes, I'm partially being a smart aleck here but I am indeed also being serious since the Hokkaido band did come up with their January 1983 first album with that very title. And as the link indicates, I also devoted an article to this debut release especially in the light that this original LP was rather proto in that it had come out before Koji Tamaki（玉置浩二） and his band really hit the big time with "Wine-Red no Kokoro"（ワインレッドの心）later in the year.

As I've mentioned in the past, I've always been fascinated by the early days of any legendary singer or band since it's frequently been the case that they hadn't sounded in the same way that we've known them in their prime. Case in point: Anzen Chitai's 2nd single "I'll Be On My Way" from October 1982 which was also placed onto "Remember to Remember". In my article on the album, I indicated that it didn't quite sound like the Anzen Chitai that a lot of us fans knew.

One other thing that I've mentioned in the past is in the form of a catchphrase: Never forget those B-sides! In the case of "I'll Be On My Way", that was "First Love Twice". The charismatic Tamaki did compose the tune with the band and familiar Anzen Chitai face Katsu Hoshi（星勝）handling the arrangement, but this time, it was singer-songwriter Kei Ogura（小椋佳）who provided the lyrics of getting that second chance at love. "First Love Twice" also has a similar energy to its A-side but over here, there seems to be that feeling of transition from the proto-atypical "I'll Be On My Way" to that famous atmospheric sound of Anzen Chitai that marked "Wine-Red no Kokoro" and their subsequent hit records. 

"First Love Twice" didn't make it onto any of the original albums by the band but it would get onto a couple of their BEST compilations: the 2005 "Anzen Chitai Complete Best" and the 1994 "Anzen Chitai Another Collection Mishuuroku Kyoku Shuu"（安全地帯 アナザー・コレクション -アルバム未収録曲集-...Album-Excluded Song Collection）.