Well, we woke up to a balmy 7 degrees Celsius this morning, but unfortunately it was raining up a storm and the winds were whipping up something similar, too, which meant that it sure didn't feel like spring by any stretch of the imagination. However, things have lightened up considerably in the past few hours. Moreover, one of the chief weather guys for the nation has predicted that the summer will be warmer than usual this year which gives everyone some hope.
I guess then that it's heck of a time to be putting up this particular song by singer-songwriter Akira Fuse（布施明）under Makoto Kawaguchi's（川口真）arrangement. His October 1976 single "Ochiba ga Yuki ni" (Fallen Leaves Into Snow) is a sad kayo about a fellow who feels stuck in one place while nature and presumably people have all changed and gone off into different directions. At first, after reading that title, I had naturally assumed that "Ochiba ga Yuki ni" was going to be another love-gone-wrong song but the theme is quite a bit larger here.
"Ochiba ga Yuki ni" had originally been created by Fuse for singer-entertainer Jun Inoue（井上順）to record but when Fuse sang it for a Suntory commercial (yes, that's right...drown one's sorrows in drink), it got quite the positive response so with its release, it hit No. 1 on Oricon. In fact, it not only became the 45th-ranked single of the year but it showed staying power to the extent that it ended up also as the 83rd-ranked single for 1977.
On a television show, Inoue even asked Fuse "Did you actually expect me to sing that song?". Fuse, tongue-in-cheek, responded "If you had sung it, it would either have been shelved or discontinued!".
