Junretsu -- Namida no Ginza-sen（涙の銀座線）

By Syohei Arai at Wikimedia Commons

 

Ahh...the good ol' Ginza Line. Used that quite a lot right from my early days living and working in the Greater Tokyo Area. When I was teaching at NOVA Asakusa Branch for those first two years, I used to transfer to Nihonbashi on the Ginza Line and then take it all the way up to Asakusa at the end. Some years later, when I was teaching a couple of ladies on Mondays, I would go the other way all the way down to Shibuya.

As I mentioned in my previous article regarding one guest, I had been watching "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）on NHK, and one of the semi-regular guests was the veteran vocal group Junretsu（純烈）. I'd first known about them when they had already gained quite a lot of prominence and popularity through hits such as "Propose"（プロポーズ）. 

So I was intrigued when I learned that the song they performed last night was their debut single from June 2010, "Namida no Ginza-sen" (Tears on the Ginza Line). Of course, it was a bit jarring to see how many members were in Junretsu on the original single cover compared to their currently pared-down number of three. And back then, the group was being promoted more as a contemporary Mood Kayo and very shibui kayo kyoku unit...Junretsu seems to be more into the general upbeat kayo stuff now.

Written by Jun Kashima（鹿島潤）and composed by Kotohime（琴姫）, "Namida no Ginza-sen" is indeed a contemporized Mood Kayo with some of that Latin spice and most of the instruments being synthesizers aside from a Latin guitar (I think). Still, the old feelings of nighttime Tokyo are fully expressed and I guess it's probably the most dramatic trip I've ever heard of a commute on the Ginza Line. A lot of shoutouts to the stations on the line.

Junretsu didn't show up on the Oricon charts until 2014 when they came out with their 4th single "Starlight Sapporo"（スターライト札幌）when they ranked in at No. 41. It was then upwards and onwards for the guys.