Sakura Fujiwara -- Soup

 

I've learned to make my fair share of soups over the years because of my solitary lifestyle in Japan. My repertoire has ranged from tonjiru (Japanese pork soup) to good ol' minestrone and I quickly picked up the point that soups gain better flavour and depth when the ingredients are left alone to get to know each other over a day or so. 

There's a better than even chance that my night tonight will be filled with Kohaku Utagassen on the PVR so I'm getting this final KKP song for 2023 posted on the afternoon of December 31st. Maybe one or two of the other writers will write up something but my contribution ends here until I'm on the side of 2024.

Listening to the good folks at "Weathernews Live", I've managed to find out about another nice song from their "Weather Music" segment, and it's by a singer that has already gotten some acknowledgement on the blog. Last year, I noted about singer-songwriter and actress Sakura Fujiwara's（藤原さくら）"Watashi no Life"（わたしのLife）, her digital download single from March 2022. Well, this song was her debut single from June 2016, "Soup". Like any good soup, it's got a fair mix of interesting ingredients in the form of pop, country and folk, all genres that Fujiwara has dabbled in although in this case, actor-singer Masaharu Fukuyama（福山雅治）provided words and music. Fukuyama and Akira Inoue（井上鑑）worked together to arrange it. Lyrically, it's also about what a couple can add to their increasingly flavourful soup of a relationship over the years and decades. 

The collaboration between Fujiwara and Fukuyama didn't end there. "Soup" was also the theme song for the 2016 Fuji-TV drama "Love Song"（ラヴソング）which starred the two as a spring-fall couple. I don't know how the drama did, but "Soup" itself not only went to No. 4 on Oricon but it also went Gold and Platinum. It would end the year as the 71st-ranked single and become a track on Fujiwara's 2nd album as a major artist, "Play", which peaked at No. 5.

Anyways, thank you "Weathernews Live" for another lovely tip. And I must thank all of you out there, fellow KKP writers, commenters and viewers for checking in and supporting us throughout this year. There have been a lot of things that have happened in Japanese music, sad and good, in 2023, but once again, we've got a fresh new year coming in and hopefully we can continue the kayo kyoku journey together! Happy to say that we got to 1103 articles!