Mayuko Miyahara/Kaoru Sugita -- Tori no Uta（鳥の詩）/Dancing dancing

 

A couple of years ago, I posted an article regarding the first of two singles that the obscure Mayuko Miyahara（宮原巻由子）had recorded in February 1983, "Hana Akari"（花明り）. It was a very pleasant number and down below, there was a comment by someone regarding their enjoyment of Miyahara's second and remaining single. My apologies for not responding but sometimes comments tend to fly under the radar with me not noticing.

That second single is "Tori no Uta" (Bird Song) which was released in August 1983. Sounding either like a heartwarming enka or a children's folk song from the 1970s, there is even a kids' chorus backing her up in the latter half. Written by Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composed by Koichi Sakata（坂田晃一）, I even get some shades of early Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）; the ocarina definitely helps.

The thing is, though, Miyahara was actually covering "Tori no Uta". The original version can be claimed by actress/singer Kaoru Sugita（杉田かおる）. I had thought that I already posted something by Sugita, who I only knew as one of the more tart-tongued tarento on Japanese television, but as it is, this is her first entry on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Welcome aboard, Ms. Sugita...please don't kill me. The original doesn't sound particularly different from the Miyahara cover, but it was released as her 10th single in June 1981 and was even utilized as an insert song in the second season of an NTV drama "Ikenaka Genta Hachi-juu Kilo"（池中玄太80キロ...Eighty Kilograms of Genta Ikenaka） which included Sugita as the stepdaughter of the late Toshiyuki Nishida（西田敏行）who was playing avian photographer Genta Ikenaka. Sugita's version reached No. 10 on Oricon and ended up as the 56th-ranked single for 1981.

But returning to the Miyahara single, I also wanted to bring you folks to the B-side of her "Tori no Uta". "Dancing dancing" is a much more different animal, sounding more like a West Coast AOR including a wailing electric guitar. Nothing wistful here...just images of running happily along the beach. Kaoru Ito（伊藤薫）was responsible for both words and music.