Mieko Hirota/Kaela Kimura -- Obake Nante Nai sa（オバケなんてないさ）

By Editor B via Wikimedia Commons

 

What was it that Ray Parker Jr. said: I ain't afraid of no ghost!

Well, think of that while you're listening to "Obake Nante Nai sa" (There Ain't No Such Things as Ghosts) as sung by chanteuse Mieko Hirota（弘田三枝子）in a way that you've usually not heard her sing. You may have her jazz stuff when she was a teen and then some sultrier tunes later in her career, but over here, she sounds just like a boy stubbornly refusing to believe that he'd be scared of the supernatural...and perhaps failing a tad. Written by Minori Maki（まきみのり）and composed by Yo Mine（峯陽）, there is something of the cute Disney-esque arrangement here, not surprising considering that it was broadcast on an NHK "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）episode from 1966 for about a month in the summer.

"Obake Nante Nai sa" has been covered over the decades by a number of other singers but the first one I discovered on YouTube was Kaela Kimura's（木村カエラ）take on the song through her September 2015 22nd single "Egg". Kimura's version of the song has more of a slightly anarchic and technopoppy marching band vibe as if she were leading a Halloween parade.