Takao Horiuchi & Tomoharu Taki -- Minami Kaikisen（南回帰線）

 

As far as I know, I don't think I've ever traveled as far south as the Tropic of Capricorn but I gather that for a lot of Japanese, that particular line of latitude may represent some good ol' traveling in the tropical zones.

Well, one fellow at least decided to have an adventure in Africa and he brought some Suntory beer with him. Just hope that he didn't give some of that stuff to the elephants. Nothing worse or more dangerous than being close to a sick or drunk pachyderm.🐘

Anyways, the jaunty commercial song here is "Minami Kaikisen" (Tropic of Capricorn) which was a duet between Takao Horiuchi（堀内孝雄）and Tomoharu Taki（滝ともはる）released as a single in April 1980. Alice（アリス）member Horiuchi had already gotten a taste of the solo artist life when he came up with his hit "Kimi no Hitomi wa Ichi-man Boruto" （君のひとみは10000ボルト）back in 1978 but didn't have another follow-up hit since then. And Taki was someone that I discovered through the blog a couple of years ago through his City Pop song "Taxi Driver" which was also a 1978 release.

Together, they recorded this footloose and fancy-free duet folk song "Minami Kaikisen" which could probably accompany a great trip down south. I like the rollicking rhythm and also the flourish that comes right after every chorus. Of course, Horiuchi shows his usual vocal flourishes here, too. I'm kinda surprised that I never heard this at karaoke. "Minami Kaikisen" managed to reach No. 4 on Oricon (this would be Taki's first Top 10 hit), selling around 375,000 records. It also ended the year as the 32nd-ranked single.

Horiuchi came up with the melody (and yep, there's a certain similarity between this one and the aforementioned "Kimi no Hitomi wa Ichi-man Boruto") with Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）coming up with the lyrics.