The Seven Wonders -- Ai no Apron（愛のエプロン）

 

I tried to find out some information regarding this band called The Seven Wonders（ザ７ワンダース）. During my search, I made a wrong turn into the J-Wiki article for The Wonders（ザ・ワンダース）which was actually a vocal group-turned-1960s Group Sounds band which included the late great Kiyohiko Ozaki（尾崎紀世彦）. The Seven Wonders was a different entity entirely and apparently belonged in the 1970s although the long hair and the fashion on their cover in the thumbnail above were obvious sartorial signs.

The YouTube uploader that has introduced me to The Seven Wonders, SHOWA KAYO THE ☆ NOW, put up this song by them only within the last five weeks and even this uploader couldn't find all that much information. I also tried but the Yahoo Japan search engine kept giving me red herrings. Just to reiterate what Showa Kayo had written underneath the video:

"The Seven Wonders" is a group shrouded in mystery, with almost no detailed information available about them. While two singles and one album have been confirmed to date, there is also a theory that a third single exists. The cover photo for this track—presumably their debut—depicts a seven-member lineup that includes one woman, yet subsequent photos show only the remaining six members after her departure. "Ai no Apron" features lyrics and music in a somewhat understated folk-rock kayō style typical of the mid-1970s. In contrast, their follow-up release, "Nikui Aitsu" (SN-1464), took a sharp turn toward a relatively hard-edged pop-rock sound.

Just to give my own take on "Ai no Apron" (Apron of Love), the single was produced and released in 1975. Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）was the lyricist here while Kunihiko Kase（加瀬邦彦）and Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）were the composer and arranger respectively. The song soberly tells the story of a man taking stock of a romantic relationship which is now in the past as he remembers his old flame working in the kitchen and waiting for him at home while wearing that lovely apron. There is a fairly jaunty if melancholy and serious vibe in the arrangement as if Hagita had meant to erase any risks of wistfulness getting into the listeners' minds; the now-single-again man is currently in the lamenting phase, post-relationship. The strings and a Santana-friendly guitar lend a certain gravitas to the situation. One commenter mentioned that the song is reminiscent of what Steely Dan had been doing at the time, although I think there is more Al Stewart in there thanks to that lovely piano and maybe even the lead vocalist's delivery.