Isako Washio -- Onna Dooshi ~ Mes amis, mes copains（女どおし）

By Jorge Royan via Wikimedia Commons

Whenever the name of the actress Isako Washio（鷲尾いさ子）comes to mind, I always think of those vitamin drink commercials she did, complete with her own jingle. They were quite popular during my time in Japan on the JET Programme in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

What I hadn't been aware of though is that Washio had already been releasing music since before that big Tekkotsu Inryo（鉄骨飲料）commercial. Although "Tekkotsu Musume"（鉄骨娘）was her debut single in 1990, Washio had released her debut album all the way back in October 1987. Titled "Kanojo no Kaze ~ son vent a elle"（彼女の風...Her Own Wind）, there was definitely an effort on the producers' part to bring some Gallic flavour into the proceedings since a number of the tracks were covers of French songs by France Gall and Francoise Hardy.

One such cover was "Mes amis, mes copains", translated into Japanese as "Onna Dooshi" (Among Women). The original had been sung by pop singer Annie Philippe in 1966, with Jean Hebert Leccia and Andre Raymond Pascal as the songwriters. Translated by Youta Shichino or Nanano（七野洋太）or Masumi Kawamura（川村真澄）depending on whether you go with the JASRAC database or J-Wiki respectively, Washio's cover is a bit more synthy and haunting. It feels like dancing a slow waltz in one huge and foreboding castle in France. Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）was responsible for arranging all of the tracks on the album.