[Simple & lyric]
No.69 "Jiyu no door" by Tomoyo Harada
Hi. Today's song is "Jiyu no door" (The door for freedom) by Tomoyo Harada.
Hina-Matsuri
Today, the 3rd March is a girl's day in Japan to hold a festival called "Hina-Matsuri" praying for healthy growth and happiness of young girls.
Traditionally, the Japanese families with small girls display a set of dolls like this.
The above gorgeous set of "Hina dolls" is a fully decorated deluxe version, and obviously a little bit expensive. So, more compact, and affordable sets are common for average young families now a days.
If you are traveling over Japan in this season (End Feb to early March), you can see the dolls like this in many places such as hotels or restaurant.
(google.co.jp is using a pair of main dolls for their logo for today.)
Please come and have a look.
Not particularly relevant to it, today's song is "Jiyū no door" (The door to the freedom) by "Tomoyo Harada".
Some reading article has been put away in a "Memo" tab in each section, so please click it to read.
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Thank you.
Index
1. Song data
| Title | Jiyū no door (The door for freedom) |
|---|---|
| Artist | Tomoyo Harada |
| Album Title | Blue Orange |
| Catalog Number | FLCF-3728 |
| Track No. | 1 |
| Duration | 3:30 |
| Released | 1998 |
| Publisher | For life records |
| Lyricist | Tomoyo Harada |
| Composer | Ulf Turesson |
| Arranger | Tore Johansson |
About the creators
It was just few, but Tomoyo Harada was occasionally writing lyrics and music for her albums since after debut.
Around 1990, she began to write more songs, and finally achieved all lyrics written by her on her album "I could be free" of 1997.
The album for today was produced just after its bringing off, and seemed she was confident for writing a lyric.
Ulf Turesson is a Swedish singer-songwriter and a member of "The excuse".
Around 1995, he started to participate the album productions of the Japanese artist together with Tore Johansson.
Among those, he had provided quite a few of melodies for Tomoyo Harada, and contributed to release a good album.
He later released a cover album of those songs under the title of "Romance" in 1998 from WEA Japan.
Tore Johansson is a Swedish record producer, composer and musician based in Sweden.
He is known as a producer of this world class hit song of 1997 by a Swedish rock band "The Cardigans".
Tore Johansson had involved production of the 3 albums of Tomoyo Harada from 1997 to 1998. They are nice indies pop albums which Tore Johansson is good at, and a thing opening a new horizon for Tomoyo Harada.
Cover art
- Sound impressions
Buoyant indie pop song
This is a simple and straight indies pop which reminds us of '80s British band "Thompson Twins" a bit.
The introduction starts with rim shot, cymbal and the clapping, then the bass, electric guitar with no effect and the vocal join.
While an ensemble creates a comfortable bouncy rhythm, the brass section adds a bright accent.
Tomoyo Harada is performing "put on a wild" vocal on this song, and it matches with the image of the lyric.
- Reference
- About the artist
An actress being a singer
Tomoyo Harada debuted in 1982 with single "Kanashii kurai honto no hanashi."(A real story almost sad.) Since then, 30 singles, 24 original albums, and 10 best albums has been released until now.
(Wikipedia, Tomoyo Harada)
She started her career in 1982 when she was a middle teen, as an actress for a TV drama series for teens.
In 1983, she was selected as a female lead in a juvenile science fiction movie "Toki wo Kakeru shōjo"(The time traveler girl).
Luckily, the movie became a smash hit, and she made a good start as an movie actress.
At the same time, she recorded a theme music of this movie, and sold half a million plus disks in total.
It was a fairly significant number in Japan, and this may be a true start point of her career as a pops singer.
In Japan, quite a few of movie actress releases music albums, but largely as a fan service. So, the number of albums released is usually 2 to 3 and not exceeding 5.
While the most of actresses have been following that way, Tomoyo Harada has already released 34 albums (including 10 best). This is in fact a bit of work.
Her songs are basically an orthodox popular music but arranged for the fashion of the time.
All tracks are pure, natural and stylish which reflect the image of her.
But her 3 albums(including this) which Ulf Turesson & Tore Johansson involved are fairly different Indies tone and much interesting.
What we like her is she seems always enjoying singing a song.
It could make listeners happy, and we think it is an important quality for a popular singer.
- Samples from online music stores
AD : Free listening samples
Amazon JP(en)
recochoku.jp
Apple Music(jp)
1
7. Japanese Letters
| Song Title | 自由のドア (Jiyū no door) |
|---|---|
| Artist | 原田知世 (Tomoyo Harada) |
| Album Title | Blue Orange |
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