In my last post, I mentioned that recently I've been hooked onto listening to some old 90s Cantonese pops. This is another Japanese song covered by Hong Kong singer Leon Lai 黎明 in 1992. I forgot how I came to know that it's a covered song, but I probably discovered it shortly after I began studying Japanese back in 2010. Hiroshi Madoka is such an odd name that I did not remember until I decided to write this post a few days ago.
It's so interesting when I read Hiroshi Madoka's Wikipedia page. It is said that as a singer, Hiroshi is considered by many Japanese to be a one hit wonder! That one hit, Musoubana 夢想花, was covered by J-Canuck in this post. It's nostalgic because that post was written in 2012, the year this blog started.
Speaking about one hit wonders, as much as I love Midori Karashima 辛島美登里, she's also kind of a one hit wonder. Coincidentally, both Midori and Hiroshi began their career by winning the Yamaha Pop Song Contest. Hiroshi did it in 1978 whereas Midori won in 1983.
Released in 1990, Yuki no Furu Hito was Hiroshi's 14th single. Music was written by Kisaburo Suzuki 鈴木キサブロー while lyrics was written by Masao Urino 売野雅勇. The English translation of the title would be "Man of Falling Snow." It's about a couple who separated. The man was watching an airplane taking off, whose light is disappearing amid falling snow. The plane was carrying his ex-lover to the next chapter in her life. He remembered how they first met at age 20, when he was carrying her across a bridge on his back that summer. Now, there's only "falling snow" everywhere.
Frankly, I like Leon Lai's singing better. I agree with J-Canuck that Hiroshi Madoka's voice sounds like Takao Kisugi 来生たかお. To me, that's like a drunken old man singing in a karaoke!
I'll let you guys decide. This is the covered version in Cantonese by Leon Lai. The title of the song is called "Wish We'd Be More Than Friends 但願不只是朋友."
Enjoy!
Hi, Larry. Again, I like both versions of "Yuki no Furu Hito" especially they've retained the cool chorus and saxophone. Oooh, a bit harsh on Kisugi since I'm actually a fan of his music. :)
ReplyDeleteI watched Madoka‘s other videos on YouTube and some of his other singing was good. I especially like his own cover of Ettou Tsubame.
DeleteHow covers work across nations is such a fun thing to look at, just yesterday I was listening to some Taiwanese shows covering Japanese enka, mostly in Mandarin but sometimes they do some bits in Japanese too.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting Chinese cover for me is the covers for a Finnish song, Kirka's Surun pyyhit silmastäni, 像雾像雨又像风 in Mando and 翻騰 in Canto
Hello, Jenard. Yeah, it can be a bit of a toss-up...some of them work well, others maybe not so much. The late Bobby Caldwell did a marvelous cover of Kazumasa Oda's "Kimi ni Merry Xmas".
Delete