Midori Karashima -- Yume wo Tsunaide（夢をつないで）

 

Yes, I do love a fresh breezy piano.😄

That period of time ranging from the late 1980s to the early 1990s was one where a number of female singer-songwriters were coming to the fore with some straight ahead pop. It always strikes me as refreshing knowing that there were pop songs that didn't always hew to a certain angle such as an urban contemporary groove or an exotic feeling or something techno. Don't get me wrong...I've liked those tunes as well, but it's also nice to hear something clear, for the lack of a better term.

Midori Karashima（辛島美登里）has been one of those singers. I've not known her to put on a backwards baseball cap and yell "Yo!" or suddenly arm herself with a double-necked electric guitar to shred some rock. She's always been a purveyor of the comfortable piano pop. I've found another example of this in "Yume wo Tsunaide" (Connecting Dreams) which was the coupling song to her September 1990 8th single "Egao wo Sagashite"（笑顔を探して）and one of the ending themes for the beloved judo-based anime "Yawara".

The singer was responsible for words and music while Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）took care of the arrangement. "Yume wo Tsunaide" is a bittersweet song in which a woman catches sight of an old flame for the first time in perhaps some years. Suddenly, there is a flood of emotions as she fights internally about remembering the good times and the reality that the past is the past. Most likely in the end, though, there will be no contact although there will be the residual musings about how the man has fared all these years. The song was part of Karashima's March 1995 BEST compilation "Hello Goodbye".