Yuko Ishikawa -- Saigo no Yoru ni（終末の夜に）

 

Listening to this song, I get images of a lonely, perhaps recently heartbroken, woman walking the streets of Tokyo alone and ending up getting a solo cocktail at what was once their favourite watering hole. The bartender is very sage and sympathetic.

I am talking about "Saigo no Yoru ni" (On The Last Night) which was the B-side to singer-songwriter Yuko Ishikawa's（石川優子）7th single "Cinderella Summer"（シンデレラ サマー）from March 1981. In contrast to the summery 50s sound of the A-side, "Saigo no Yoru ni" feels and sounds more mature, wiser and sadder, as if playing around on the beach all throughout that Cinderella summer has had its benefits, costs and consequences and now on that final night, the check has come due. To be honest, although I have categorized it as a City Pop tune, the blues and jazz push through in the melody by Ishikawa and the arrangement by Yasumasa Awano（淡野保昌）and Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）, and it may be just the song that is playing for that heartbroken woman in the bar.

Japanese music has plenty of examples of furigana that is different from the original kanji reading within a song title. This may be one of the more poignant examples. The formal reading of those first two kanji is actually "shuumatsu" rather than the more common and everyday "saigo" that is actually used to read "Saigo no Yoru ni". The kanji refers to the end in a more apocalyptic or terminal sense, giving a deeper meaning to the woman's feelings at the moment.