Kozo Murashita -- Suna no Onna（砂の女）

 

I guess that title "Suna no Onna" (Woman in the Dunes) must have unlocked something within the Japanese to make it reusable over and over again. I know that I just wrote about Nako Mizumura's（水村なこ） "Suna no Onna" a few minutes ago, and perhaps there was at least one other song with that same title lurking somewhere in the annals of "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Of course, there is the 1962 novel "Suna no Onna" along with its cinematic adaptation.

Well, after finishing with Mizumura's song, I noticed that there was a song titled "Suna no Onna" by the late singer-songwriter Kozo Murashita（村下孝蔵）. I've taken this as an opportunity since I've always enjoyed his material and I haven't actually written up anything about his music in a few years...at least not since his 1991 "Kono Kuni ni Umarete Yokatta"（この国に生まれてよかった）. And hey, let's make this a thing with the "Suna no Onna" bandwagon.

Murashita's "Suna no Onna" was written and composed by the singer and arranged by Kimio Mizutani（水谷公生）. It was the first track on Murashita's 7th original album "Hidamari"（陽だまり...Sunny Spot） from October 1987. The singer first started out as the amiable folk balladeer but going further into the 1980s, he apparently did like his work on the synthesizers including his big 1983 hit, "Hatsukoi"（初恋）. "Suna no Onna" has got the technology in spades so that I couldn't help but place it as a technopop tune although it doesn't go too hard into YMO territory. "Hidamari" managed to peak at No. 33 on Oricon.