Tatsuro Yamashita is commonly known by many names; in Japan, he's known as the "Craftsman of Sound", in the West he's simply known as the King of City Pop. To me, my favorite soul singer next to Stevie Wonder, they're the only two solo artists I can think of where I can say there's not a single song by them I dislike. That being said, trying to pick a favorite Tatsuro song is like trying to pick a favorite child. Regardless I do have my favorites, not just because I think they are the most well crafted, but as someone who's basically grown up with Tat's since high school, many of his songs have special memories tied to them. It was tough, but here are my top 10 Tatsuro Yamashita songs that mean the most to me.
I remember the first time I actually took the time to listen to this song, I was having an extremely bad day. I was on my way to work, I missed 3 busses, it started raining and I had no umbrella and a plethora of other issues. Everything that could possibly go wrong on that day, happened all in the span of a few hours. When I finally caught a bus I was already frustrated, all I could do was escape to my music. I ended up randomly picking a song from youtube recommendations, and once again, through the magic of the Youtube Algorithm, I found myself in tears, listening to what is now my all-time favorite Tatsuro Yamashita song. One of the qualities that Yamashita's music has is that despite the language barrier, you can just feel what the message of the song is, the moment you hear it, which in this case was trying to find meaning through everyday life. I felt the strength to carry on with my day after hearing that song. Sobo is one of those songs that always calms my soul every time I listen.
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Someday |
This was the song that introduced me to Tatsuro Yamashita and by extension city pop. I remember in my junior high school I was going through a severe wave of depression. I was going through a lot of drama with my family and was having some severe suicidal thoughts. I remember one night, I was playing video games while youtube was cycling through random videos, and through the magic of the Youtube algorithm, all of a sudden I heard the bass drop and the voice of Kobayashi (it was the Come Along II version). By the time I'm at the chorus, I'm suddenly put to tears by this song that I can't even understand. There was something about the gospel-esque quality to the song, and the passion & optimism behind Yamashita's voice that moved me.
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Circus Town |
At this point, I had only listened to individual Tats songs on YouTube. Come Along, the compilation album, was the first real album I heard by Yamashita, accompanied by the eccentric & comedic voiceover of DJ Katsuya Kobayashi. I was already impressed by what I heard so far, but as a die-hard acapella/doo-wop fanatic, it was Last Step that made me a die-hard fan. The icing on the cake was the compilation exclusive intro to the song, which was Yamashita's acapella rendition of "Auld Lang Syne".
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Bokura no Natsu no Yume (僕らの夏の夢) |
This song has a special place in my heart since it's the first time in my life I got to bond with a family member over City Pop. One of my favorite anime movies has to be Summer Wars, a wonderful film that on my first impression I can only summarize as "Madea's Family Reunion meets Digimon". I was in for a pleasant surprise when I heard Tatsuro Yamashita's voice during the end credits. Bokura no Natsu no Yume seemed like the perfect melancholy and nostalgic ending to a movie about a family bonding during the summer while saving the world from a life-threatening computer ai. I saw the film around the same time I was living with my mother, and taking care of my baby sister, who I had to tuck into bed every night, of course only after singing around 7 different lullabies to her until she finally went to sleep. One night after singing my own extended version of Old Mchdanoald had a farm, she still wouldn't fall asleep, and I had run out of songs to sing. Desperate to keep her from staying up all night crying, I sang Bokura no Natsu no Yume, which at the time, was the closest thing to a lullaby that came to mind. Despite my shoddy Japanese, (which didn't matter since she didn't understand it anyway), wouldn't you know it, she went right to sleep! From that point on she would never fall asleep unless I sang that specific song to her. Now that my sister's older, I plan to get her a copy of Summer Wars, just to see the look on her face when she recognizes the lullaby her big brother used to sing her.
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Bomber |
Coincidentally I discovered this song around the same time I was in my Old School Funk obsession phase. I'm talking Parliament Funkadelic, Ohio Players, George Duke, The Barkays, Ronnie Hudson, the works. I remember the night I first heard it. I couldn't fall asleep because I was having nightmares, so I tried to put on some music to calm my nerves and ease my mind. At first, I tried to look for some quiet nighttime music, but nothing was working, but of course, the algorithm works in mysterious ways, and Bomber popped up in my recommendation feed. I was immediately caught off guard by the jackhammer sound in the intro but soon got over it once I was captivated by the funky bassline and rockin' electric guitars. Such a bombastic and lively song shouldn't have put me to sleep that night... but it did. Probably because I was too focused on how funky it was to think about whatever I was afraid of at that time, and for that, I will always be thankful. It's also another song that my best friend has bonded over, due to our shared respect for funk.
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Ride On Time |
The 1980 album, Ride On Time, was the first time I ever listened to an original Yamashita album. It was also one of my first experiences listening to a complete album ever, as before I had only consumed music as individual songs. The title song is also the first Yamashita song I learned how to sing. I remember I was working at a gift shop at Santa Monica pier, and we had some Japanese tourists visit the shop. I've had Japanese tourists at my shop before, but these guys happen to be your archetypal salarymen, suits, glasses & everything. I was still practicing my Japanese at the time, but I managed to impress them and make a few sales. One of the things I like to do with tourists from different countries is to play some pop songs on the store speakers, from their home country, just to make them feel welcomed. I decided to play Ride On Time for them, which they found to be a pleasant surprise. What surprised me is when one of the salarymen started singing along to the song, knew the whole thing by heart too! He kept edging me to sing along with him, but I simply did not know how at that point. From that moment on, I made it my mission to learn the lyrics to as many Tatsuro songs as possible, even started hanging out at the local Karaoke bars in Little Tokyo.
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Circus Town
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I vaguely remember my first trip to New York when I was 12 years old. I remember it being loud, crowded, expensive, and full of rude people. My most prominent memory was when my family and I were crossing the street in Manhattan, and a taxi cab almost ran us over. I've seen enough movies that took place in NY not to take it personally, however, the stranger standing next to me obviously did, because he gave the taxi driver the bird. The next thing I knew the taxi was chasing the mad pedestrian to the point where he started driving on the sidewalk! The craziest part was the cop was so casual about it, he de-escalated the whole thing like it was just another drunk bar fight on a Saturday night! The over the top atmosphere of New York is something that will always stick with me, and no other song I've heard encapsulates it so well as Tatsuro Yamashita's Circus Town. From the clever opening homage to of Julius Arnošt Vilém Fučík's The Entry of the Gladiators, to the analogies between the Big Apple's streets and the Big Tents tightrope, Yamashita hit the nail on the head in his musical assessment of New York City from a tourist's perspective.
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Merry Go Round |
Back when I didn't know what the genre was, I remember the first future funk artist I was ever introduced to was Macross 82-99, he did a song called New Dawn which was a remix of Tatsuro Yamashita's 1983 song, Merry Go Round, from the album Melodies. While I enjoyed the future funk remix, there's just something magical about the original song. With its wind chime opening, hypnotic bassline, and enough cowbell to make Christopher Wlkan jealous. There's also the unforgettable moment in the latter half of the song where Tats just starts singing: "目を覚ませ ユニコーン！" "Wake up the Unicorn". It's probably the most simultaneously confusing & magical thing I've ever heard in a song. It's one of my best friends' favorite Tats songs, and every time we get to "the unicorn part" we sing it in perfect harmony every time.
As a Southern California kid, I naturally grew up listening to the Beach Boys and other pioneers of that classic surf rock sound. So when I discovered Yamashita's 1984 album, Big Wave, I was in for quite the surprise. When I worked at the ol' Route 66 gift shop in Santa Monica, we had a neighboring cart shop that would play the typical billboard top 10 pop songs all day, obnoxiously loud too. So when the manager got our shop its own speaker system I was excited. I searched youtube for all the best beach-appropriate songs I could find. That's when I stumbled across Big Wave, and when I pressed play, I knew this was exactly what I needed. The Theme of Big Wave instantly gave me the chills with its opening bassline hinting at something greater, and surely enough, Yamashita's English vocals totally caught me off guard. That combined with the ethereal backing chorus, the groovy guitar riffs, and the very Pet Sounds-inspired synths, I felt like I was listening to a lost Beach Boy song remastered in HD! Whenever I played the song, people who passed by the shop constantly asked me, "Hey is this Bria Wilson!?!" and I'd have to tell them "Nope, he's just one hell of a fan!" Sure enough, Theme of Big Wave is probably the greatest tribute to the California Sound I've ever heard.
I remember one day I was searching for English covers of city pop songs so that I can sing along to them and possibly share them with family & friends without having to worry about the language barrier. During my search, I came across a series of 90's albums called Tatsuro Songs From L.A., which featured English covers of Tatruso's most popular songs sung by popular western artists like Elizabeth Wolfgramm from The Jets, Joseph Williams from Toto, even Philip Bailey from Earth Wind & Fire. While most were decent in their own right, none of them quite capture the magic of the originals, and a few were downright boring. One song that stood out to me was Gene Miller's rendition of Kokiatsu Girl (High-Pressure Girl), which I liked enough to check out the original song. Now, keep in mind, the English version was my first time hearing the song at all, so when I finally heard Tatsuro's original version...holy cannoli. Sorry Gene Miller, but you just don't hold a candle to the original experience. It's not even Miller's voice that bothers me, it's the bland 90's synth-pop instrumentation that lacks any of the unique personality of the original. What makes Kokiatsu Girl such a special song is the flawless blending of do-wop, pacific islander/ Hawaiian aesthetic, and jazzy polyrhythmic chord progression. And of course, with nearly every Tatsuro Yamashita classic, he provides a great payoff towards the end of the song with his signature holding of the note.
I'll be back with part 2 soon. In the meantime, what are your favorite Tatsuro Yamashita songs?
