Akiko Yano/Haruomi Hosono/Takahiro Saito -- Owari no Kisetsu（終りの季節）

 

Along with "Never forget those B-sides!", another trope that I've come to cherish as I've added onto the blog over the past thirteen years is the discovery of a song that actually has quite a lot attached to it. I found another one recently.

I'm going to go backwards in time here because the Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）cover was the first one that I found. "Owari no Kisetsu" (The Ending Season) is a smooth and relaxing track from the singer-songwriter's June 1984 album "OSOS"（オーエス オーエス）. Written and composed by Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, it's indeed a chamomile tea-friendly song with that hint of country and some of the remaining technopop feeling from her early 1980s material. I just love some of those piano chords laid down here and the languid way that Yano delivers the lyrics.

As I said, Yano's "Owari no Kisetsu" is a cover of what Hosono himself performed way back in 1973 on his "Hosono House" album. With this version, there's more of a frisky Margaritaville vibe in Hosono's arrangement although it's still plenty languid. The lyricist is identified as Mondo Uno（宇野もんど） although that is a pseudonym the singer used. 

But even Hosono's version is a self-cover of the original song that he provided to Japanese country singer Takahiro Saito（斉藤任弘）. "Owari no Kisetsu" was a track on "Country Pumpkin"（カントリー・パンプキン）, a January 1972 album that was a collaboration project among Saito and fellow country artists Jimmy Tokita（ジミー時田）, Keiichi Teramoto（寺本圭一）and Yoshio Ohno（大野義夫）. Hosono played a number of instruments on this one including his regular bass as Saito gives a wonderfully woodsy performance that reminded me of a Japanese Johnny Cash. 

Interestingly enough, Saito did appear on Cash's old variety show on ABC in America back in 1971 according to the Japan Popular Music Association website. What other information I could glean is that the singer first got into country music during his junior high school days via his elder brother who had been listening to radio station WVTR with its country-and-western lineup. Hosono's lyrics regard an early-morning goodbye to a dear friend.

It would frankly be a toss-up of a three-sided coin as to which version I prefer. Each take has some of its own lovely charms.