Translation: The Memory Walkway (Agnes Chan)

I'm learning about Takashi Matsumoto's long and winding road as I wander along it.

At the beginning there was Happy End, of course. In 1971 or early 1972, while the flagship band was still active, Takashi wrote the larger part of a beautiful album called The Pirate Kid's Adventure, for Apryl Fool keyboardist Hiro Yanagida's folky side-project Sons of Sun. In 1972 came another seven songs for a self-titled Yanagida album and five for Eiichi Ohtaki's solo debut.

After Happy End broke up came the brief but busy period in which Takashi tried to make a living doing production work. He wore himself out, shepherding four of the best albums of all time into existence in just a little over a year's time:


1. The "Takashi solo album" Heroine of the Skyscraper, with Yoshitaka Minami as frontman and Caramel Mama backing, fresh off of recording Hosono House.

2 & 3. Two albums (Golden Lion and Who'll Extend This Child a Loving Hand?) by folk singer and Bob Dylan devotee Nobuyasu Okabayashi — an old friend by then, since Happy End had backed him on an album and tour in 1970. As the so-called "god of folk," Okabayashi didn't need help with lyrics. Neither did...

4. ...intrepid lifer Morio Agata, whose Alas, No Mercy has five songs with a Takashi co-writing credit regardless. A couple years later, Agata put out a double album produced by Haruomi Hosono (off of which you might know this gorgeous song, which found a second home on the first disc of Hosono's 20th Century Box).


But production meant working nonstop and still barely making ends meet. Takashi has said he was rarely at home that year, which for a new father two years into his first marriage did not look like a sustainable career path. So, hoping to make his living more reasonably, he decided to try becoming a professional lyricist. The rest is history...

...but it's a rich and convoluted history that I've merely scratched the topmost archeological layer of. 

Early on, that history involved Agnes Chan, a sweet-voiced young singer from Hong Kong who moved to Japan and gained popularity there (then went to university in Canada, got a couple of master's degrees, and returned to Japan to make more hit albums). Takashi wrote one of her early hits, Pocket Full of Secrets, and as a result of its success, went on to write another twenty-six songs for her over the next four years. 

Hosono and Shigeru's Caramel Mama arranged and played on several early Agnes-via-Takashi songs, including The Memory Walkway (Makaino/Matsumoto), an album track that preceded the Pocket Full of Secrets breakthrough. The album it appears on was released in the spring of 1974. Technically, Takashi was still in the middle of his Production Year, which gives you a sense of just how crazy things were, and how many nets Takashi had in the water. He was still in close touch with the Apryl Fool and Happy End guys, too — two songs on Chu Kosaka's Hosono-produced Horo had Takashi lyrics, and Shigeru's fully Takashi co-written solo debut Band Wagon would come out a year later. 

Had Kyohei Tsutsumi, Takashi's most stalwart musical collaborator, looked him up by then?

A lot was going on. And all the while Takashi was writing songs as lovely as this one.

:::

The apple tree

towered over that quiet hill.

I couldn't reach any apples

even if I stood on tiptoe.

You plucked them for me, laughing.

The day grew dark.

You're no longer here.

But everything else is exactly the same

as it was back then.

I've come walking up the hill on my own.

See, these memories have already turned

the color of wind.

This blue-green apple

feels nice and cool in my palm.

There was only one up on the high bough.

I stood on tiptoe

and got it down.

The one who changed without noticing it

wasn't you after all, it was me.

But everything else is exactly the same

as it was back then.

I'm alright on my own. I'm alright now.

See, these memories have already turned

the color of wind.

See, these memories have already turned

the color of wind.

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