Patrick Hernandez -- Born to be Alive

 

Ah, yes, YouTube...finder of lost memories of music. Perhaps I should say that it is a corrector of wrong memories of music. To explain, I had thought for the longest time that the disco hit "Born to be Alive" was a song by Canadian singer Gino Vannelli but it was actually by French singer Patrick Hernandez. And look, the names and origin nations may be vastly different (aside from the fact that both Canada and France have French as official languages), but both singers have huge mops of hair, boomer voices and plenty of charisma. I remember who I thought was Vannelli singing "Born to be Alive" as he popped up on a TV commercial for one of those K-Tel record compilations. It was no wonder that for some bizarre reason, I couldn't find the song on my own Vannelli BEST compilation.

What made it worse was that I hadn't even known the name of the real person behind "Born to be Alive". However, one day not too long ago, YouTube burst forth with some video shorts playing that very song for some ambitious dancing folks, and I finally had my singer. Interestingly enough, I remember this song being played at one of our junior high school presentations when a few of the girls decided to have a dance to this Hernandez hit. I gotta admit that hearing the song again after so long, I can imagine this still bringing the masses onto the dance floor to hoof it up with abandon. And back in the day after its release in November 1978, it struck No. 1 in a number of countries including Canada, America, Italy and Mexico.

And that begs the question, what Japanese singles were coming out in November 1978?

Anri -- Olivia wo Kikinagara （オリビアを聴きながら）

Hiroshi Madoka -- Musoubana （夢想花）

Momoe Yamaguchi -- Ii Hi Tabidachi (いい日旅立ち)