EPO -- Twinkle Christmas

 

It was exactly a month ago that we launched the 2023 Xmas season at "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and the first official song was EPO's "Shiroi Machi Aoi Kage"（白い街 青い影）, so I think it would be appropriate if we ended the season with another EPO Xmas song.

First off, let me give some quick background information such as the above video by Karafuto Channel（樺太チャンネル）on YouTube. It shows the department store Le Trois（ル・トロワ）which is a local establishment in Sapporo, Hokkaido.

Well, Le Trois used to be the MALSA Department Store back in the 1980s and as a commercial jingle of the season for it, EPO wrote and composed a special song, "Twinkle Christmas". I found out about it for the first time on Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu" podcast for the MIDI album compilation "Winter Tales 2" from 1992. On the podcast, it begins at 27:49 and Scott gives an interesting story about "Twinkle Christmas" since it was never officially a part of EPO's discography, and in fact, until "Winter Tales 2" was released, the only way that any EPO fan could get a copy of it was through somehow tracking down a promotional copy of the song that had never been meant for release in the stores.

With EPO handling the songwriting duties, the arrangement was left to Sapporo native Yasuharu Konishi（小西康陽）who had just begun Pizzicato Five, a group that was still some years away from becoming the Shibuya-kei darlings of the world. "Twinkle Christmas" has got quite the bouncy beat that had me thinking of ol' show-timey performances on television. The melody is upbeat but Scott mentions that the lyrics aren't all that happy since a woman is waiting for a Prince Charming with all of the Xmas frills in her apartment but in reality, everything is all in vain. So, basically skip happily to the traditional supermarket floor of MALSA and then end up picking up a Cup O' Noodle for one over there.

In any case, let's not all fret about that. Personally, I've got a turkey breast roasting in the oven right now with family coming over in a couple of hours. And I'm certainly hoping that all of you will continue to enjoy your Christmas as well. We'll see what happens next Xmas season with a potential new batch of J-Xmas tunes.

Ah, as a PS, this is the 1080th article for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" this year so we've just broken another record set last year with the largest number of articles in any one year. Perhaps we can go for the big 1100 by the end of 2023!