Teruhiko Aoi -- Epilogue（終章）

 

The songwriting sibling team of lyricist Etsuko and singer-composer Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）is pretty much legendary through the annals of Japanese pop music. I don't quite know how far their history goes back. Brother Takao starts from 1976 but his elder sister Etsuko has it mentioned in her J-Wiki profile that it's sometime in the 1970s. 

This particular song recorded by Teruhiko Aoi（あおい輝彦）will probably go down as one of the Kisugis' earliest joint works. "Epilogue" (although the kanji is formally read as "shuushou") was arranged by Shunichi Makaino（馬飼野俊一）and it's appropriately the final track on Aoi's October 1977  2-LP BEST album "Aoi Teruhiko ~ Anata dake wo -- Johnny's wo Kikinagara"（あおい輝彦 – あなただけを～ジャニスを聴きながら...Only You -- While Listening to Johnny's）.

When it comes to the Kisugis, I've usually said that they can come up with some nicely lush ballads, and "Epilogue" is perhaps one of their earlier successes in this mold. It sounds proud and elegiac and there's a hint of Frank Sinatra's "My Way" in terms of the overall feeling as the protagonist seems to be looking back on a life well fed and well led.