Cheuni -- Glass no Tokyo Tower（ガラスの東京タワー）

By Wladyslaw via Wikimedia Commons

I remember as an elementary school kid in downtown Toronto when I was at recess seeing the CN Tower gradually being built up. From our schoolyard, we had a pretty clear view of the tower as it was going up. And then one day in 1976, it finally opened as the world's tallest free-standing structure at 553 metres high, a record which it held for about twenty years. And as of a couple of days ago, it celebrated its 50th anniversary. Maybe I'll go up the tower again this year although it now costs a good chunk of an arm and a leg to enter.

Now, it's safe to say that I won't be able to find any kayo kyoku that pays tribute to Toronto's most famous landmark. However, perhaps I can still acknowledge the fact of the CN Tower's golden anniversary through another tower...let's say Tokyo Tower! And coincidentally enough, tomorrow is the 69th birthday since Tokyo's own famous landmark was erected and opened. So I guess we can celebrate the two towers with one song.

That song is "Glass no Tokyo Tower" (Glass Tokyo Tower) which was Cheuni's（チェウニ）16th single from December 2009. Cheuni seems to have become KKP's poster child for the genre of New Adult Music with its mix of enka/Mood Kayo and urban contemporary influences, and it looks like she has enjoyed singing about aspects of Tokyo through songs like "Tokyo Twilight"（トーキョー・トワイライト）which was her debut single in 1999, so I guess "Glass no Tokyo Tower" could be seen as a 10th anniversary song for her. Yuko Natsumi（夏海裕子）was the lyricist here, as she also was for "Tokyo Twilight" and other songs for Cheuni, while Kazuya Amikura（網倉一也）took care of the classy and elegant melody surrounding a woman who is wishing upon Tokyo Tower itself through her apartment window (that's prime real estate there) to somehow bring back the lover that she let go unfortunately. The song reached No. 46 on Oricon.