J-Canuck's Station-to-Station Songs

 

Yesterday, I met an old friend for coffee and then dinner downtown at Union Station. It had been a few years since the last time I met him so I figured that we would be catching up on a lot of stuff. Part of the reason that we went for Union Station as the meeting place was that I'd heard about the renovation of the station, especially where the food was concerned. Being a foodie, I was interested about a new flood of restaurants and cafes creating a mega food court underground. You can take a gander at the above video by Toronto Our City whose husband-and-wife team has been exploring the various eateries of our city. 

By the way, I know that there is a certain group of otaku in Tokyo who love to explore the underground malls, passageways and crevices of one of the world's biggest cities. Considering next year's World Cup which will have a few games played in Toronto and that our metropolis may have the biggest underground commercial complex on Earth (the PATH system), I cordially invite those folks to do a bit of exploration here, too).

After enjoying an hour of coffee, conversation and one of the best almond croissants that I've ever had, we were getting lost in the maze that was the Union Station underground before opting for dinner. When we got to Union Chicken, the place was packed with Toronto Maple Leafs fans for about half an hour before it got all cleared out like a drainpipe getting the Drano treatment (there was a home game just down the street). Then it was easy to get a table where I got the three-piece Chicken Tenders with Fries. I'm glad that I didn't get the five-piece version since that would have killed me. The above video is from the official Union Chicken YouTube channel.

Anyways, getting reacquainted with the main train station of Toronto and being back in my room in front of my computer again, I've decided to put up an Author's Picks based on kayo kyoku or J-Pop songs with the word "station" or "eki" in their titles. Enjoy!

(1964) Hachiro Izawa -- Ahh, Ueno Eki （あゝ上野駅）

(1971) Chiyo Okumura -- Shuuchaku Eki (終着駅）

(1980) Mariko Kurata -- Sayonara Rainy Station （さよならレイニー・ステーション）

(1986) Sonoko Kawai -- Aoi Station （青いスタスィオン）

(1986) Akina Nakamori -- Eki（駅）

Gosanke: Toshiba Sannin Musume（東芝三人娘）

 

When I was thinking about this latest in the Gosanke（御三家...The Big 3）series on KKP, I also mused about whether our household every owned anything by Toshiba. Sony and Hitachi were represented at home and of course, there was the Toyota car, but I don't think a Toshiba item ever got past our threshold. However, I do remember the Toshiba Rupo word processor in the Board of Education of Tsukiyono where I worked on the JET Programme. Compared to the slender laptops we have now, the Rupo was a veritable World War I tank.

But I digress. For this Gosanke entry, there is the Toshiba Sannin Musume （The Three Ladies of Toshiba） consisting of singers Chiyo Okumura（奥村チヨ）, Jun Mayuzumi（黛ジュン）and Tomoko Ogawa（小川知子）. The connection among the three is that the ladies debuted their discographies from Toshiba Records, and the name got adhered to them in the late 1960s according to J-Wiki with Okumura being the latest to debut in the year 1965. The naming is similar to what happened with a later trio of singers: the RCA Sannin Musume（RCA三人娘）.

Tomoko Ogawa -- Yuube no Himitsu　（ゆうべの秘密）

Chiyo Okumura -- Shuuchaku Eki (終着駅）

Jun Mayuzumi -- Tenshi no Yuwaku （天使の誘惑）

Chiyo Okumura -- Kitaguni no Haru wa Mijikai（北国の春はみじかい）

Happy Sunday! Or I hope that everyone is having a Happy Sunday in the immediate vicinity since not every person is a big fan of heat and humidity. Like me. Today will probably end up being one of the hottest days of this summer, and so I've got my electric fan on behind me.

Perhaps I can try for some aural cooling down with this October 1969 song by kayo veteran Chiyo Okumura（奥村チヨ）. This was actually the B-side to her "Koi Dorobou"（恋泥棒...Love Thief）, "Kitaguni no Haru wa Mijikai" (Springs in the Northern Country are So Short), and from the slightly anguished vocals by Okumura and the title, I can surmise a bit that the ballad is a melancholy one about love lost so early in the year, far from the traditional breakup season of fall.

My previous article about Okumura last September was about the similarly titled "Kitaguni no Aoi Sora"（北国の青い空...Hokkaido Skies） composed by The Ventures in 1967, and I had to listen to that one and "Kitaguni no Haru wa Mijikai" a number of times in alternating succession since they also both sounded quite similar. But for this B-side, it was Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）on lyrics with Kunihiko Suzuki（鈴木邦彦）taking care of the music. As is the case with "Kitaguni no Aoi Sora", there is something faintly enka-like with "Kitaguni no Haru wa Mijikai" but in the end, I think this is also a straight-up pop kayo.

Chiyo Okumura/The Ventures -- Kitaguni no Aoi Sora（北国の青い空）

In terms of foodstuffs in Japan, one of the many items that I miss dearly is the Rokkatei Marusei Raisin Butter Cookie from Hokkaido which I could readily purchase in Tokyo. Packaged in the familiar white, red and dull gold, these are confections that risk the consumer with addiction. I can merely glance at them and I will gain a few ounces immediately and they're oh-so-tasty. I don't think I've had any of them since the 2014 trip and when I checked their website out, they don't do deliveries outside of Japan (considering the ingredients, I'm not surprised, but still...😢).

Perhaps if I had been less focused on the various delicacies in Hokkaido (specifically Sapporo) when I went there over a decade ago, I would have looked at the big sky over Japan's northernmost island. Speaking of which, I will now do an abrupt segue into a relatively early Chiyo Okumura（奥村チヨ）single from August 1967, "Kitaguni no Aoi Sora" (Blue Skies of the Northern Country). However, the official English title is "Hokkaido Skies".

Okumura's quavering voice is instantly recognizable as she sings about a romance in Hokkaido which has probably ended for good in a kind of "We'll always have Sapporo" way. When I first heard "Kitaguni no Aoi Sora", I wondered whether I could treat this as an enka tune because of the overall sound and the theme of the ephemeral nature of love, but seeing that, according to J-Wiki, Okumura has been categorized as a kayo kyoku singer, I've set the song down as a pop tune.

I may have said this before but I think if there is such an institution as a Japanese Hall of Fame for kayo kyoku, The Ventures should be given a place in its corridors for the hits that they've provided a number of Japanese singers in the 60s and 70s, including Okumura. The legendary guitar band was responsible for the creation of the song under the title "Hokkaido Skies" while Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）wrote the lyrics. According to Joseph Murrells' "The Book of Golden Discs" (1978) via Okumura's entry on Wikipedia, this particular single, which was apparently a cover of The Ventures' original, sold over a million copies.

Ox/Chiyo Okumura/Mi-Ke -- Swan no Namida（スワンの涙）

I figured that I would be getting a compilation album of a famed songwriter's works sometime, and sure enough, I purchased this one called "Tsutsumi Kyohei: Jisen Sakuhinshuu"（筒美京平自選作品集...Kyohei Tsutsumi's Personal Selection）, not realizing that 2018 is composer Kyohei Tsutsumi's（筒美京平）50th anniversary in the music business. This man has created so many songs for so many different singers and bands over the past half-century that his collection has had to be divided into three 2-CD sets depending on genre (and that still doesn't come anywhere near his total output). There is the set devoted to aidoru, a second devoted to more AOR pursuits and then there is the one that I got: City Pop. Heck on this blog, only Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）has more entries than Tsutsumi as a songwriter. Furthermore, I've already written his own Creator article.

Tsutsumi and Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）created this ballad for the Group Sounds band Ox (and the two of them also provided the band with their debut single), "Swan no Namida" (Tears of a Swan) as their 3rd single in December 1968. It was not only on CD 1 of the tribute compilation that I now have (although I'm not sure if I would call it City Pop) but by grand coincidence, the song was even performed on NHK's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）a little over a week ago.

Considering the band was named after a pretty husky animal, "Swan no Namida" is a tenderhearted GS ballad about a young couple who may be keeping their relationship secret and who may be considering a breakup for the good of all. They are having a final walk together and visiting some of their favourite places including a church and a terrace. Hashimoto's lyrics mention some place up in the north so I'm wondering if they had any particular place in mind such as Sendai or Sapporo.

Selling over 250,000 records, "Swan no Namida" managed to reach as high as No. 7 on the embryonic Oricon, and ended up as the 44th-ranked single of 1969.

There have been plenty of covers of the song over the decades with perhaps the earliest being done by Chiyo Okumura（奥村チヨ）in June 1969 for her 3rd album "Anata to Chiyo to..."（あなたとチヨと…You and Chiyo and...）. Her take is a bit more of a straight kayo version from that time with the strings and flute.

(cover version)

Another cover was provided by the trio Mi-Ke, whose modus operandi was dusting off a lot of those old kayo and breathing new life into them. It looks like their take on "Swan no Namida" went through the B'z arrangement filter. The song was included in their debut album "Omoide no GS Kujukurihama"（想い出のG.S九十九里浜...Memories of G.S. Kujukurihama）which peaked at No. 19 on the Oricon charts.

Chiyo Okumura -- Shuuchaku Eki (終着駅）

A song of despair, Chiyo Okumura（奥村チヨ）used her 25th single, released on Xmas Day 1971, to rid herself of her then-image as a coquettish young singer. Born in Chiba Prefecture but raised in Osaka, she debuted in 1965. "Shuuchaku Eki"(Terminal Station) had Okumura singing about loneliness and escape as she makes her way to the final station on the line.

Apparently having thoughts of retiring from show business, the success of "Shuuchaku Eki"was the impetus for her to stay on board...at least for a few more years. Written by Kazuya Senke（千家和也）, the composer of the song, Keisuke Hama（浜圭介）, had also come to a crossroads when it came to his career, but as with Okumura, when his song became a hit, it breathed new energy into his life as a songwriter which has taken him as far forward as 2006. However, for Okumura, she would finally retire in 1974...after marrying Hama.