Being an original Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき）song and all, it's no surprise that there are no videos currently showing the singer-songwriter herself performing "Omoidegawa" (River of Memories), her 6th single from August 1978. There are the many cover versions on YouTube and I was able to find a LINE excerpt of the song right at this link. Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）took care of the arrangement of the Nakajima-penned song that deals with drinking one's sorrows after another failed romance. I did love the metaphor from the lyrics of the ship of sand sailing on the titular river of memories.
Otherwise, we're going to go with the cover versions by other singers. According to J-Wiki, there were two done in the following years with the first one being 70s aidoru Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）as a track on her 1978 album "Hatachi ni Nareba"（20才になれば...When I Turn 20）. The pacing is a little jauntier than the folksy Nakajima original and I think Sakurada was tilting toward a more mature take vocally, perhaps to follow the Nakajima style. the album managed to reach No. 28 on Oricon.
Then in December 1982, Naoko Ken（研ナオコ）, who has sung other Nakajima-penned tunes such as "Hitoribocchi Odorasete"（ひとりぽっちで踊らせて）in the past, recorded her cover of "Omoidegawa" as a B-side to her 30th single, "Furareta Kibun"（ふられた気分...The Feeling of Rejection）. Wakakusa also arranged Ken's cover as he did the original by Nakajima in 1978, but this time, the feeling is a melancholy City Pop take thanks to a darker piano. Ken seems to be ideally suited to take on those sad girl-done-wrong songs because of her voice which often takes on a heartbreaking quality. Ken's "Omoidegawa" also made it onto her 1984 album "Again".
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