Miyuki Yokoyama -- Mistress - Aijin（ミストレス-愛人-）

 

I only had very glancing experiences with the hostess club culture in Japan when I was much younger. An English conversation teacher doesn't quite make enough in the income tax bracket to even rarely darken any door of such a club in a major centre in Tokyo. However, one year at one of my schools, there was a noticeable number of young women in our year-long course who worked in the hostess industry. It was very much study during the day, entertain at night. Of course, some of our male teachers had to be warned more than once to actually stay focused on the textbook.

One such statuesque student once approached me after recognizing me at the nearby Excelsior (Japanese Starbucks clone) coffee shop and engaged me in English conversation (apparently, she's quite good at that...conversation, that is). She admitted that there were parts of her job she wasn't very fond of but I didn't press on what those were. 

But that's what has gotten to put up this particular song by Miyuki Yokoyama（横山みゆき）. I've got a few of her other songs on the blog but this one, "Mistress - Aijin" (Lover), is about as City Pop as I've heard of her thus far. A track from her March 1983 album "Aishite Gomen ne..."（愛してごめんね...Forgive Me For Loving You）, the song was written by Shigeru Amano（天野滋）from the band NSP along with Fuyuko Moroboshi's（諸星冬子）further assistance while the melody was composed by Toshiharu Jitsukawa（実川俊晴）. Speaking of that melody, it is quite pleasingly melancholy and images of either Rajie or Melissa Manchester have been dancing in my head on hearing this one. Perhaps there is even a feeling of resignation in the music considering the titular character and her ultimate fate.

Miyuki Yokoyama/THE CRAZY RIDER Yokohama Ginbae ROLLING SPECIAL -- I Make You（アイ・メイク・ユー）

 

It's a comfortably lazy Sunday out there (at least until the thunderstorms roll in later) so perhaps it might be appropriate to bring in an old rock n' roll ballad. 

First off, I have Miyuki Yokoyama's（横山みゆき）5th single from August 1982, "I Make You" which was written and composed by Shokichi "Sho" Tamiya（田宮将吉）, the main vocalist of the rock band THE CRAZY RIDER Yokohama Ginbae ROLLING SPECIAL（THE CRAZY RIDER 横浜銀蝿 ROLLING SPECIAL）, with Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）handling the arrangements. At first, I'd thought that the title was similar to the sentiments of "You complete me", that famous quote from the old Tom Cruise movie "Jerry Maguire". However, there is the repeated lyric of "I make you...lonely girl" which actually describes the melancholy feelings of a guy after breaking up with his love. Still, I cannot deny the lovely electric guitar in "I Make You" along with those shimmering strings that sweep on in. It may be a breakup but it's one beautiful and poignant breakup.

Yokohama Ginbae did a cover of "I Make You" a year later for their December 1983 6th album "Bucchigiri Reverse"（ぶっちぎりR...Breaking Away Reverse）, and their take feels even more 50s rock n' roll, especially with Sho's heartbroken and raspy delivery before everyone comes in.

Miyuki Yokoyama -- Kirisame no Rouge（霧雨ルージュ）

I had bookmarked this song for some months but I've only finally gotten to it tonight. There's been quite a backlog that I've got to get through.

Miyuki Yokoyama（横山みゆき）was a singer that I had first gotten to know through her debut single,"Shuushifu"（秋止符）which was created by the folk duo Alice（アリス）in 1979. I was entranced enough by the song that I wanted to find out a little more of her discography and then encountered this track called "Kirisame no Rouge" (Rouge in the Light Rain) from her 1980 album "Yokoyama Miyuki Second"（横山みゆきセカンド）.

As much as I love the funky beats of City Pop, I also have spared a soft spot for the light ennui-laden music of Fashion Pop. "Kirisame no Rouge" has that certain dramatic Fashion Pop sensibility with a small infusion of the exotic kayo that was also fairly popular in the late 1970s. I have also noticed that Yokoyama's delivery is somewhat similar to that of Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）. I couldn't find out who wrote and composed this song but it's possible that it could have been Ozaki.

Alice/Miyuki Yokoyama -- Shuushifu（秋止符）

Some snow, some freezing rain, a lot of driving misery today, I'm sure. And we're all still heading out for dinner tonight. But alas, that has been our winter this year.

At least I'm not the poor protagonist in Alice's（アリス）17th single, "Shuushifu" which was released in December 1979 on the same day as the folk duo's 16th single "Utsukushiki Kizuna ~ Hand in Hand"（美しき絆〜Hand in Hand〜...Beautiful Bond）. The fellow in that ballad is going through some major blues. As for the title, I'm going to reiterate the kanji here「秋止符」which I think is a kanji pun devised by Alice since I couldn't actually find such a term in the dictionaries. However, there is the term「終止符」which is pronounced in the exact same way and refers to the grammatical period at the end of sentences. In fact, according to the J-Wiki article about the song, it has often been mistakenly written as「終止符」.

I think "Shuushifu" for the Alice song probably means "Autumn Full Stop" as in the romance is dead and buried. And as I've mentioned in past articles about kayo with an autumnal theme, that particular season is often the climactic symbol for the death of relationships. It's not a happy story by Alice member Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）but his partner Takao Horiuchi（堀内孝雄）weaves a fairly jaunty folk melody around it. The song got as high as No. 4 on Oricon and became the 20th-ranked single for 1980. It is also on the duo's 7th album "ALICE VII" which was released in June 1979.

Some months before Alice's release of "Shuushifu", though, Miyuki Yokoyama（横山みゆき）had come out with the first version as made by Tanimura and Horiuchi. It was actually her debut from September 1979. Her "Shuushifu" has more of a European-sounding arrangement which perhaps would take her song into the category of those exotic kayo songs that were popular in the late 1970s.

I don't know if Yokoyama's version got up onto the Oricon charts but her time as a singer lasted into the early 1980s with 8 singles and 3 albums during that time.