Wednesday, August 02, 2023

君といつまでもby 加山雄三 (Kimi to itsu made mo): Sharing Music I Like

(Sharing Music I Like)

As I wrote in the previous post, I'm going to try to post some entries about Japanese music while I have some free time this week.
This one is by by Kayama Yuzo.  
Kayama Yuzu: Japanese crooner and heartthrob. Perhaps equivalent to a Japanese Elvis, if you only count the slower songs in the Elvis cannon. I didn’t like him much on my first hearing, but he’s grown on me. Good music to have on during a date.
For more information, see Kayama Yuzo's Wikipedia article HERE.  
Kimi to itsu made mo is, I think, his best known song.  According to Wikipedia:
"Kimi to Itsumademo" ("Love Forever"), another of his compositions, sold over two million copies, and was awarded a gold disc in 1965.[3] At that point it was the biggest selling disc in the Japanese recording industry's history.[3]

Like most Japanese oldies, I first discovered this song when I was systematically working my way through the yearly billboard hits of Japanese music.  I initially thought it was interesting just because of how old it sounded.  It's one of those songs that could only have been written in the early 60s.  It's got a real quaint old feeling to it--like, you can put on this song, and you can just picture this song crackling over an old radio in the quiet of the countryside of old style Japan.
But, after listening to it a few more times, I decided that in addition to just being a cool retro sounding song, it also does have a really beautiful melody.  Give it a listen.


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