Junko Yagami -- Yume Miru Koro wo Sugite mo（夢みる頃を過ぎても）

 

I've been covering individual tracks from Junko Yagami's（八神純子）February 1982 album "Yume Miru Koro wo Sugite mo"（Even If The Time to Dream Passes） for a number of years now including "I'm a Woman" and "Secret Love"（シークレット・ラブ）. It's no surprise that these songs have had more than enough urban oomph to get them onto the blog on Fridays when I cover that sort of thing.

But the album begins with the title track itself and I'd say that the title track is more of a conventional pop ballad, although I'd been wondering whether I should have placed it during Urban Contemporary Fridays. Ultimately though, I opted to post it during a regular day. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with "Yume Miru Koro wo Sugite mo"; it's one of those Yagami ballads that features her alternating soaring and purring voice, beautiful contemplative piano by her, and those shimmering strings as part of the entire package. In a way, I think the ballad hearkens back to her very early days as a teen balladeer of the 1970s. Yagami and Ryuichi Kawamura（川村龍一）co-wrote the lyrics (under the pen name of Hisashi Kawamura) with the former handling the melody. Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）provided the arrangement.