Ruika Kurahashi -- Taxi wa Konai（タクシーは来ない）

 

It didn't happen often since most nights I was able to get home by the Tokyo Metro fairly easily and early enough, especially when the powers-that-be finally allowed the trains and subways to extend their ending times a bit further past midnight. What I'm talking about is whenever I did miss that final Tozai Line subway back to Chiba Prefecture. The last couple of trains around the witching hour tended to only go as far as Toyocho Station（東陽町駅）in Koto Ward, Tokyo, which is several stations away from my station, Minami-Gyotoku（南行徳駅）in Ichikawa City.

So, that means when I missed that third-last Tozai train, I was kinda screwed...or I was going to be out several thousand yen because my only choice around midnight was the taxi. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of other commuters who were heading home late as well so there would be a long beeline of folks waiting patiently for that cab outside of Toyocho Station. Meanwhile, there was always some suspicious guy in a dark coat inquiring up and down the line whether they would be willing to take that "private" taxi home. It wasn't part of the regulated chains and it was always the case that the driver would charge a whole lot more yen for the ride home, but usually that was about the worst of the damage...just to one's wallet. I never got that desperate...but it was still about 4,500 to 5,000 yen for a regular taxi to my neck of the woods from Toyocho.

Anyways, my preamble ramble is for this lovely and elegant ballad, "Taxi wa Konai" (The Taxi Won't Come) by Ruika Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ華）. Yep, you read it correctly and this isn't a misspelling on my part for those relatively new Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）fans. For some odd reason, when her December 1987 album "Sailing ~ Kyou yori Eien ni"（今日より永遠に...From Today to Eternity） was released, it was decided that the given name of her stage name would get a swap out of that final vowel from "o" to "a". That little bit of phonetic weirdness was rectified by her next album, though.

In any case, "Taxi wa Konai" is the type of urban sophisticated balladry that Kurahashi could bat out of the ballpark like Shohei Otani（大谷翔平）. Maybe the lass would take a regular cab home but she herself would be dripping in fur coat and jewelry and Chanel No. 5. While Kumiko Yoshizawa（吉澤久美子）took care of the lyrics, Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）, under his current name of Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）, was the composer of the music that sounded downright nocturnal Parisian with the piano rhythm and then those strings. As I said, this is quintessential Kurahashi, whether she be Ruiko or Ruika.