In 1985, Shigeru Suzuki released Sei Do Ya. It was his first album in six years and turned out to be his final album of songs. I have no idea how he made his living in the years between then and the late 1990s, when Hosono revived Tin Pan, and next to nothing about what Shigeru did afterwards either, since Tan Pan activity has been sporadic. In the last few years he's been releasing albums with his old high school band Skye (featuring Caramel Mama members Tatsuo Hayashi and Masataka Matsutoya).
Sei Do Ya didn't have any lyrical contributions from Takashi, but in 1986, Shigeru did a few arrangements for the first album by Mami Yamase, on which Takashi wrote all the words. The Carnival of Moonlight, arranged by Shigeru, has music by Toshio Kamei.
Takashi's songwriting pace slowed way down from 1990 on, but I imagine the proceeds from the multi-album Hiromi Ohta and Seiko Matsuda collaborations have given him a comfortable financial cushion. Haruomi has Yellow Magic Orchestra money, presumably. Eiichi Ohtaki had A Long Vacation. But what has Shigeru been living off of? I know he did a lot of arrangement work in his soft rock years, but it's hard to imagine that alone could have kept him afloat.
:::
This is the street corner of lost children.
This is the baby elephants' parade.
The clown is calling me over
from inside of a large tent.
This is the ring of fire.
This is the golden lion.
The magician has disappeared
inside the mirror.
The strange young boy
up on the trapeze
gives me a strange look.
This is the carnival of moonlight.
This is the chandelier of stars.
And they're bringing me along with them
into that brilliant country.
Hanging on to the trapeze with both arms,
I'm flying through the night sky.
This is the carnival of moonlight,
exactly the same
as the one I saw in a picture book
when I was just a little child.
This is the carnival of moonlight.
This is the chandelier of stars.
And they're bringing me along with them
into that brilliant country.
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