Keiko Goto/Junko Sakurada -- Mado（窓）

 

I don't watch French movies...although I did catch a few scenes of "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" on television (warning: make sure you have the Kleenex next to you, especially in the last scene). As a rule of my imagination (and my apologies to all those fans of the Nouvelle Vague), I always envision old French movies with scenes like these: a man or woman sitting forlornly next to a window on a cold rainy day, letting their breath hit the pane with condensation. This lasts for two hours. FIN

Strangely enough, I've encountered this song titled "Mado" (Window) sung by Keiko Goto（後藤啓子）. In fact, this was her debut single from 1981 although it apparently was also a track on her 1980 album "Aimez-vous Sagan". I've posted about Goto once before for her 1981 song "Me wo Tojite"（目を閉じて）which was quite the bouncy City Pop tune.

"Mado" is probably more in tune with her days as a singer at Gin-Pari（銀巴里）in the 1970s, the famous chanson cafe in Ginza that I mentioned only a few days ago when I paid tribute to the recently departed Akihiro Miwa（美輪明宏）. I'm not sure if "Mado" would fall under the chanson category but it's still quite the spirited French waltz of a kayo kyoku as written and composed by Shigeru Inumaru（犬丸秀）*. Maybe I can give it the Fashion Music label. It certainly doesn't have Goto breathing sadly on a window pane for a couple of hours.

One interesting thing happened while I was searching how to read the lyricist/composer's name. I found out that "Mado" had gotten a cover version via aidoru Junko Sakurada's（桜田淳子）37th single from August 1982. If anything, it's even breezier and an accordion has been thrown into the arrangement, to boot, for that enhanced Gallic flavour.

*Not totally sure on the reading of the above name. If anyone can confirm or deny it, let me know.