Motoharu Sano -- Glass no Generation（ガラスのジェネレーション）

 

I've mentioned the above book "Nantonaku, Crystal"（なんとなく、クリスタル...Somehow, Crystal） by future Nagano Prefecture governor Yasuo Tanaka（田中康夫）as one whose reputation preceded it for years upon years after its publishing in 1981. That was also the year that I fully got into the whole thing about Japan after my graduation trip through the nation as a high school student. Hearing about this novel which delves into a part-time model's hedonism with tons of references to various consumer goods and songs piqued my interest for years until I finally bought it a few years ago. Back in 2021, I posted an article on its namesake song created for the movie based on the novel so I'll let you see about my further thoughts on "Nantonaku, Crystal" without repeating myself.

The reason that I'm bringing up the novel again is that recently singer-songwriter Motoharu Sano（佐野元春）made his guest appearance on NHK's "Asaichi"（あさイチ）during the Friday Premium Talk segment. I've only seen Sano in two televised interviews: this one and the one that he did on Downtown's "Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ" music talk show back in the 1990s. Of course, for the latter show, he was the target for the comedic duo's good-natured hits as was the case for most of the singers. For "Asaichi", he was a very affable and generous guest talking about his past and present.

Well, during the interview, Sano brought up his second single, "Glass no Generation" which was released in October 1980. Even those very early students of the Japanese language can figure out that the translation for the title is "Glass Generation", but its official English name is "Crystal Generation". Sano was behind both words and music with Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）arranging everything into a very jaunty and pleasant song of the times, reminding me a bit of his later "Sugar Time". There is something about the music of "Glass no Generation" that is reminiscent of people like Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and even The Beatles in their respective early periods.

Interpreting those lyrics though lit some light bulbs over my head. It's about a couple having such a great time with each other that they hope it never ends with the lyric of note being "I don't want to be a boring adult". Of course, I was reminded of the phenomenon of the Crystal Tribe describing those young folks in contemporary Japan back then who were all for the trendy goods, music and other parts of pop culture mentioned in "Nantonaku, Crystal" and who were named after the novel. Just to remind readers, "Glass no Generation" came out in late 1980 while the novel was out in 1981. I haven't read anything in the information regarding either Sano's song or Tanaka's novel that would hint at any sort of inspiration from the former into the latter but I still wonder if there was a connection.

In any case, "Glass no Generation" gave off the scent of the promise of all that the Economic Miracle could provide and did provide for the following decade. The song was also part of Sano's 2nd album "Heart Beat" which was released in February 1981. From that "Asaichi" interview, I also found out that back in January this year, Sano and his group known as The Coyote Band re-recorded the song under a somewhat different arrangement with a new title which was the lyric that I was referring to in the previous paragraph: "Tsumaranai Otona ni wa Naritakunai"（つまらない大人にはなりたくない）. This time, the arrangement seems to be focused on speed rather than bounce.