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I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Saturday, May 3, 2025

Char -- Kizetsu Suru Hodo Nayamashii(気絶するほど悩ましい)

 

When a song ends with the lyrics "Any love that's going well isn't love", I can assume that this isn't a light and breezy ditty of romance. But such is the case with Char's 2nd single from June 1977, "Kizetsu Suru Hodo Nayamashii" (You're So Annoying I Can Faint), and yep, maybe I can say the same thing about the title.

Written by Yu Aku(阿久悠), composed by Tatsushi Umegaki(梅垣達志) and arranged by Jun Sato(佐藤準), I can opine that "Kizetsu Suru Hodo Nayamashii" goes along the line of "can't live with each other, can't live without each other", as a man and a woman snipe against each other internally and yet won't commit to a breakup. Melodically, what's striking is how smooth and pop this Char song is...usually I think rock or City Pop with the Tokyo-born singer-songwriter (although he wasn't involved in the songwriting process here as noted above) , but this time, there is something almost approaching Gilbert O'Sullivan or Al Stewart with the rhythm, strings and guitar. Mind you, there is also a feeling that Umegaki and/or Sato had perhaps wanted to incorporate a bit of Jigsaw's "Sky High" at around the chorus part.

"Kizetsu Suru Hodo Nayamashii" reached No. 12 and ended up as the 98th-ranked single for 1977, selling around 300,000 records. A stripped-down version of the song made it onto Char's sophomore album "Char II have a wine" which was released later that year in November.

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