With a title like "Machibito Kitarazu" (The Person I'd Been Waiting For Didn't Come [or in today's vernacular perhaps: Ghosted]), and especially with singer-songwriter Takao Kisugi's（来生たかお）penchant for melancholy melodies, I'd been expecting a rather sad ballad.
However, then I realized there was that Japanese music policy of having happy and sad songs on opposite sides of a record single, and "Machibito Kitarazu" just happens to be the B-side of Kisugi's debut single from October 1976, "Asai Yume"（浅い夢）. The A-side is a very tenderhearted ballad and one of his most cherished tunes. So, instead, "Machibito Kitarazu" is actually quite a snazzy and snappy ditty created by him and his elder sister, lyricist Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）. With arrangement by Katsu Hoshi（星勝）, it comes across as a slightly Gallic and jazzy traipse down the Champs-Elysees, and yep, I can even imagine jeune frere Kisugi dandily dancing down the boulevard in a porkpie hat and cane to this one.
One little aside here is that I really like the cover for "Asai Yume" with Kisugi just lounging about in a well-lived room with that hint of sepia in the atmosphere. Yeah, I guess it was New Music.
I wonder is the The Kisugi sibling (or team Kisgui) had a bit of a sense of humor when they created this as the title sounds considerably sadder than the music does! “Machibito Kitarazu” has a kind of cabaret-pop / chanson / jazz-pop bounce to it. The rhythm has a deliberately light-footed quality, while Kisugi sings in his characteristically understated manner. The tension between the lyric's romantic disappointment and the arrangement's almost jaunty movement is what makes it memorable. Historically I wonder if this would been considered to be New Music with touches of chanson, singer-songwriter pop and sophisticated studio jazz.
ReplyDeleteThere is that sense of that flighty and not-too-bothered "Ah, she's not going to show up after all. C'est la vie." in Kisugi's delivery as if this happens all the time. Along with "Asai Yume", the single may have set the template for the Takao style.
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