The weather was gloomy out there at Haneda Airport on November 18th 2017 when I was waiting for my flight back to Toronto after a couple of weeks seeing friends and going to all of the old haunts in Tokyo. Happily though, there wasn't any rain.
Perhaps singer Feifei Ouyang（欧陽菲菲）wasn't quite as lucky with her 2nd single "Ame no Airport" (Rainy Airport) which was released back in December 1971. The song was on the heels of her hit debut single "Ame no Midosuji"（雨の御堂筋）which had come out earlier in September. I gather that the songwriters and all around her felt that anything with rain in it couldn't hurt her chances for another successful tune.
In any case, "Ame no Airport" was created by the golden partnership of lyricist Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. As has often been the case with kayo kyoku involving airports, there is much romantic heartbreak in the air as a couple say their goodbyes in a middle of a dreary precipitation-laden day at presumably Haneda Airport which had been at the time the main terminal for Tokyo until Narita wrested the title away for many years. Melodically, it has that familiar kayo sound of life in the city with the horns, shimmering strings and the rollicking percussion. Ouyang's sophomore entry hit No. 4 on Oricon and ended up as the No. 31 song for 1972.
But as the commercial pitchperson says, "Wait...there's more!". On Ouyang's 4th album "Return" from September 1979, she recorded another version of "Ame no Airport" with a very slight change in the arrangement.
Not nearly as good as her first zinger of a song.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how the Japanese picked up the klezmer like sound of the opening clarinets(?). I like it even though it dates it to very particular time.
I like the Phil Bodner project The Brass Ring which has a lot of the same sound. You could call it "The Now Sound", ha.
Hello, Robert. Yeah, sophomore efforts aren't usually as winning as the first songs. When I think of the "Now" sound, words such as "groovy" and "Can you dig it?" come to mind. :)
DeleteDigging deeper, the closest song from The Brass Ring is their cover of "Love in the Open Air" by Paul McCartney.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQfpsx6GVT0
I like the Brass Ring cover more than the original by McCartney which is just a little too maudlin for my taste. For some reason, the URL you gave me wouldn't open but I did manage to find another video showing off the cover:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okAAXU7Ek5A