I had a friend who refused to sing karaoke because of a bad experience she had back when Karaoke was in its early days. Before the time of private rooms and home karaoke, most places you’d end up singing was in bars, in front of all the other patrons, a daunting task, to be sure! Anyway, my friend was urged to sing at one of these get togethers, and beign a big Bonnie Raiit fan, decided to sing “Runaway”. As her song began, she had a quizzical look on her face, as the melody pouring out of the speakers didn’t sound ANYTHING like the Bonnie Raitt song. The reason for this was that the song playing wasn’t the Bonnie Raitt song per se, but rather the original Del Shannon version !, She immediately realized it, but as the song had started and everyone was watching, attempted to make a go of it, but it was too difficult- the two versions were just too different to wing! After struggling through a verse and a chorus, she had enough and gave up. “Never Again!” she adamantly stated!
Now, I’ve never sung that Bonnie Raitt song at a Karaoke Bar (and would probably choose “Are You Ready For The Thing Called Love”, anyway) but I COMPLETELY sympathize with what she was going through. So often it happens that the version of the song you THINK you’re going to be singing isn’t ANYTHING like what’s being played, and a good example of this is a time when I attempted to sing Hamada Shogo’s awesome song “Kanashimi wa Yuki No Youni” at Karaoke for the first time!
I’d fallen in love with the song the way I fell in love with a lot of j-pop singles- by means of a Japanese drama, and the show this time was called Ai to iu Nano Moto ni [In The Name of Love], an emotional story of seven high school friends who meet up again as adults a la BIG CHILL and find life is harder than they thought it would have been when they were younger.
This 1992 drama starred (among others) Eguchi Yosuke, Karasawa Toshiaki and the ever adorable Suzuki Honami as the leads in the group of seven, and this tale of watching them grow up and face the harsh real world (with sometimes very sad and tragic results) with only each other to rely on, really struck a chord with your heart. Naturally, the theme song that haunted you throughout the series stayed with you, and by its end, I needed to have it!
Strcitly speaking, there were actually TWO Hamada Shogo songs used in the drama, Kanashimi Ga Yuki No Youni and the title song, Ai to Iu Nano Moto Ni, but it was the former that I fell in love with, and I went in to Tower Records hoping to order the song through special order. Well, it seemed the single was out of print (of course) but my friend who was the Japanese buyer told me he had the Shogo Hamada album, and would bring it in so I could borrow it !! Cool!
I went back to work the next day and couldn’t WAIT to listen to that CD, but when I got home that evening, I was in for a surprise- the Album version of Kanashimi wa Yuki No Youni was DIFFERENT from the version used on the show!!! This version was brighter and peppier than the one I knew, and I was to find out later that the slower, melancholy one form In The Name of Love was in fact the SINGLE VERSION! D’oh! It wasn’t until months later when I spotted a used copy at a local Japanese CD rental store that I was able to obtain a copy of my own!!
So, fast forward a few months or so later, and I’m with a bunch of friends at a Karaoke room, and I get up to sing the aforementioned Shogo Hamada song, and whaddaya know- it’s that OTHER , happier and FASTER version than the one I knew! GAHH!!
So I’m struggling with it , trying to find the right tempo to sing MY version along with THIS version, gads, what a piece of work!! But it’s the only version available, so if I wanna sing it, THAT’S the version a gotta go with!
Someday I’ll talk about a very SIMILAR story with MISATO’s “My Revolution”!!!
Ah, being a j-pop lover DOES have its dramatic moments! Anyway, here's the version I love:
