Pink Lady -- Pink no Ringo（ピンクの林檎）

 

"Uta Con"（うたコン）this week started off with a big tribute to the iconic aidoru duo Pink Lady（ピンクレディー） from the 1970s with one-half of the duo, Mitsuyo Nemoto（根本美鶴代）aka Mii（未唯mie）, appearing on stage to perform some of the old hits such as UFO. In place of her partner Keiko "Kei" Masuda（増田啓子）, some of the other guests stepped in to help out with the singing and dancing. The reason for all of the hubbub is that August 25th signified the 50th anniversary of the release of Pink Lady's debut single "Pepper Keibu" (ペッパー・警部) back in 1976.

Now I'd thought that I could do the B-side of "Pepper Keibu" in tribute but alas, I already did "Kanpai! Ojou-san"（乾杯!お嬢さん） last year. So I'm now going with the B-side of Pink Lady's 2nd single "S.O.S." which was released in November 1976. Written by Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composed/arranged by Shunichi Tokura（都倉俊一）, the duo's go-to songwriters for quite a while, the short-but-sweetly sung "Pink no Ringo" (Pink Apple) sounds like quite the B-side since there is no hint of the disco or the feeling of dynamic limb moves that are part and parcel of a Pink Lady performance. Instead, it's a happy-go-lucky conventional aidoru song about a pink apple being the magical love charm. In real life, I would stay far away from a pink apple.