Shogo Hamada -- Midnight Flight: Hitori Bocchi no Christmas Eve （ひとりぼっちのクリスマスイヴ）

Unfortunately, this is still someone that I have yet to know really well, and considering his long years in the music business and how many singers he has written for (Momoe Yamaguchi, Akiko Wada, etc.), I think I should. So, if there are any Shogo Hamada（浜田省吾） fans out there, I'm open to suggestion.

At this point, I have just this one wonderful song by him. And although "Midnight Flight: Hitori Bocchi no Christmas Eve"(A Lonely Christmas Eve) is, as the title suggests, a bittersweet ballad of someone having to separate from a loved one by thousands of kilometres over air on December 24th, there seems to be a feeling of some pride and hope throughout, especially in the refrain, as if the separation will not be a permanent one. There will be more Christmas Eves to spend together. And the arrangement of the song seems to hint at a long voyage ahead.

The song was never a released single but a track on his 11th album, "Club Surf & Snowbound" released in June 1987 with a peak ranking of No. 2 on Oricon. However, the version I know is from his 2nd album of all ballads titled "Wasted Tears" released in September 1989 which hit the top spot on the Oricon weeklies and became the 16th-ranked album of the year.

For all those J-Pop fans who are gonna be hitting the skies in a few days, pop this one into your ears.

Friday May 23, 2014

I received a comment from Faruk Ahmet about the song recently, and so I went into the lyrics once more. After going through them, I realized that my earlier statements about them were perhaps somewhat optimistic and slightly inaccurate since it looks like the woman that Hamada sings about has taken off for The Big Apple for perhaps a good amount of time, and the poor man at the airport assumes that the relationship is as good as dead. I felt like picking that guy up at Narita or Haneda and taking him out for a good stiff drink at a nomiya. However, he might be being a bit too morose (after all, he got dumped on Xmas Eve) and perhaps the next year may find some happier times for him and her.

In any case, here are the translated lyrics for "Midnight Flight":

The flight that I put my girl on disappears into the night sky
There's not even a shadow in the airport parking lot
If only I had stopped her and said "Don't go"
The two of us would've been flying down the highway toward the heart of the city

What I've lost is so big
I still can't even feel the pain
A lonely Christmas Eve
A freezing Silent Night
Where do I go from here? I can't see anything below the sky

She'll be living with her sister in New York for a while
I can't bear to be in Tokyo by myself
She'll call only when she wants to see me
I'll only eat, drive and hit the hay

You, who came to believe in only a love without any meaning
You're only scared of truly loving
A lonely Christmas Eve
A freezing Silent Night
The city lights where we thrived together are receding

The rain mixed in with the falling drizzle
Is changing to snow
Nobody is going back to
the waiting place for the people in love (these last two lines I'm not totally sure about)

The golden ring in my pocket that I was planning to give my girl
I'm still clutching it in the palm of my hand even now
A lonely Christmas Eve
A freezing Silent Night
I can't find anyone to take care of....no one at all

Tuesday May 27 2014

And the following is the romaji version of the song:

Ano ko noseta tsubasa, yozora e kiete yuku
Kuukou no chuushajo, mou hitokage mo nai
"Yuku na" to hikitomereba, imagoro futari
Kousoku wo toshin e to hasshiteita hazu

Nakushita mono ga amari ni ooki sugite
Itami wo kanjiru koto sae mo dekinai mama sa
Hitori bocchi no Christmas Eve
Hiesou na Silent Night
Koko kara doko e ikou mou nani mo mienai sora no shita

Imouto to kurasu tsumori shibaraku New York de
Hitori kiri Tokyo de mou ikite yukenai
Aitai toki ni dake denwa kakete kite
Shokuji shite, doraibu shite, beddo ni hairu dake

Katachi no nai ai dake wo shinjite kita anata wa
Honki de ai suru koto osoreteiru dake
Hitori bocchi no Christmas Eve
Hiesou na Silent Night
Futari de ikite kita tokai no akari ga touzakaru

Furidashita mizore majiri no
Ame ga yuki ni kawatte yuku
Dare mo minna aisuru hito no
Matsu basho e to kaette yuku

Poketto no naka ano ko ni okurou to shita Golden Ring
Ima demo te no hira ni nigiri shimeta mama
Hitori bocchi no Christmas Eve
Hiesou na Silent Night
Mou mamoru mono nante mitsukerarenai nani hitotsu

Reimy -- Pocket no Coin (ポケットのコイン）

This is probably one of the more Xmas-y-sounding non-Xmas songs I've ever heard. Never became a hit or its own single, but it's just one of those pleasant little ditties by Reimy（麗美）. The lyrics (Reimy wrote and composed the song) for "Pocket no Coin" (The Coin in The Pocket) actually refer to what seems like the early days of a happy marriage, but the way the song is arranged, I've always imagined it being the theme song for a couple taking a lovely stroll through a Christmas Market. Hey, my imagination, what can I say?

"Pocket no Coin" was a track in Reimy's 8th original album, "Hashiru Soyo Kaze Tachi e" （走るそよ風たちへ....To The Gentle Breezes) released in February 1990. Actually, the title track was the resident Xmas song.

Dreams Come True -- Winter Song

This isn't just a Winter song; this is a Christmas "Pop The Question" song. I can just imagine a lot of nervous boyfriend types getting down on bended knee in that Italian restaurant in Aoyama after having requested the maitre 'd to play the song. The staff probably has the disc on standby in the kitchen. Once you see the lyrics on the video above, you'll understand. The crazy thing, though, is that "Winter Song" was actually released in January 1994.Well, sounds Xmas-y enough to me.

For Dreams Come True, this was their 5th No. 1, penned by vocal Miwa Yoshida（吉田美和） and composed by both Yoshida and leader Masato Nakamura（中村正人）. Even though the single was released just a week into the New Year, I think the slow jingle bells in the background can have people thinking that it was originally meant for the Yuletide. Plus, it is a romantic ballad, and in Japan, Xmas is all about the couples. "Winter Song" ultimately became the 19th-ranked song for 1994.

This is the concert version by Dreams Come True. (Ahh...no, it isn't. It's been taken down so enjoy this remix.)

P.S. Eating an appetizer of ignorance before the main course of turkey today. I'd only known about "Winter Song" and not the original, "Yuki no Christmas"（雪のクリスマス...Snowy Christmas）, which came out all the way back in 1990.

Yuki Okazaki -- Do You Remember Me?

To be honest, I don't remember much about Yuki Okazaki（岡崎友紀）herself, and she actually has had a much longer career as an actress, appearing in her first role in "Peter Pan" back in 1961 as an 8-year-old, and then continuing on the stage and then into television. She debuted as a singer in 1970 with "Shiawase no Namida" （しあわせの涙....Happy Tears) which peaked at a respectable No. 35 on the Oricon weeklies.

However, her biggest hit was a decade later when "Do You Remember Me?" was released in June 1980 as one of her last singles. I've heard the song off and on in compilations and on TV, and it rather reminds me of some of those old 1960s performances by female pop singers, and songs by British actress Tracey Ullman in the early 80s. The song, written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composed by Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, peaked at No. 18.

19xx Bokutachi no Natsukashii Melody （僕たちの懐かしいメロディー）

I mentioned a few entries ago about the late-night music ranking show on TBS, "Countdown TV" that I often caught during my years in Japan with those three CG characters as hosts. Well, in my earlier 2-year stint in Gunma Prefecture, I used to catch something similar on Fuji-TV in the wee hours. Not sure if it was on a Monday or Tuesday night but it was usually on after midnight.

"19XX -- Bokutachi no Natsukashii Melody" (Our Nostalgic Melodies) was perfectly made for kayo kyoku fans like me. As we lay in the warm comfort of our futon, this half-hour program simply consisted of past performances from the 70s and 80s interspersed with scenes of the breaking news stories from that time. Each episode focused on a certain year, and the opening theme was always The Carpenters' "Yesterday Once More" which couldn't be more nostalgia-brewing.

It was always nice to head to slumberland listening to these old chestnuts.

ALFEE -- Seiya - Futari no Silent Night （聖夜・二人のSilent Night)

Ever since first hearing "Marie Anne" back at the 1983 Kohaku Utagassen, I'd always pegged Alfee as a straight-ahead rock band. But one day in 1990 in the CD stores, I came across this disc titled "The Alfee Classics with The London Symphony Orchestra". Well, the exclamation marks rattled off in my head....a Japanese rock band partnered with the orchestra behind "Star Wars" and "Superman"?! I had bought a CD single by them not too long before that titled "Flower Revolution", the band's 34th single and the theme song for that year's International Garden and Greenery Exhibition in Osaka, and I saw that that song was also listed on the back of this new album. Intrigued, I bought "The Alfee Classics", and listened as the band melded some of the classics such as Holst's "The Planets" with some of their hits.

Then, there was this Xmas track which had a chorus singing the first few jaunty verses of "Joy to the World" before the LSO settled into a softer mode, performing Alfee's Xmas song from 1987, "Seiya - Futari no Silent Night"(Holy Night - A Silent Night for Two). And I thought the arrangement was just wonderful....it didn't seem like the usual rock song from the band....more like a typical classical Christmas-ical song that John Williams would whip up. The piece ended with the chorus and the orchestra coming all together and triumphantly fading into the background.

Now, I've had the classics album for over 20 years, but it's only been within the last half-hour that I've actually had the chance to hear the original rock version of "Seiya" for the first time on YouTube. And I enjoy it....it's almost like a victory march by Alfee. This original was from their 12th album, "UK Breakfast", released in December 1987. It peaked at No. 4 on the album charts.

Beam me up, Scotty....pine!

Misia -- Everything

The video for Misia's "Everything" is one of the most memorable for me. I think the three ingredients for a Xmas-themed video are: 1) kids....lots of kids, 2) snow and 3) slow motion. "Everything" has got everything....including footage of what looks like Yokohama's Red Brick Park.

Misia has had a number of uptempo songs and ballads which have become hits since her debut in  1998. But I think when all is said and done, "Everything" may be the one that she will be best known for. It's one of those exquisitely-sung love ballads that depending on the situation and the season, it can just hit me in the throat and tear ducts. At karaoke, if amateur (and decent) singers really want to stop the gang from talking in the booth, they select this one.

Lyrics were by Misia and the notes were by Toshiaki Matsumoto（松本俊明）, who had also composed Jun'ichi Inagaki's（稲垣潤一）"Merry Christmas ga Ienai"（メリークリスマスが言えない）almost a decade before. The accolades for "Everything" are many. Released in October 2000, it debuted on Oricon at the top spot and stayed there for a non-consecutive total of 4 weeks, quickly became the 14th-ranked song for the year and even jumped up a couple of more ranks the following year. According to Wikipedia, it is the best-selling single by a female artist in Japan in the 21st-century, and the 3rd-best-selling single overall by a female Japanese artist behind Namie Amuro's "Can You Celebrate?" and Hikaru Utada's "Automatic". It sold 2 million copies. And it just happened to be another hit theme song for a Monday-night-at-9 Fuji-TV drama, "Yamato Nadeshiko".....the sweet spot when it comes to Japanese TV dramas which has been occupied by shows like "Tokyo Love Story" and "101st Proposal".

As is plainly evident, I love everything about "Everything", but the special part for me is that instrumental bridge when the strings go into a gospel mode and just hit this crescendo before Misia finishes up with the final verses.

The single was also a track on Misia's 3rd album, "Marvelous" which was released in April 2001.