Mariko Kaga (加賀まりこ, b.1943) is an actress, who now receives much respect not only for her career as an actress, but also for her liberated way of life as a female. Some people called her "Japanese version of Brigitte Bardot," but her skinny and elegant style is rather simular to the girls of Swingin' London, I guess.
Lesson for Love (『愛のレッスン』) is a conceptual album created in 1971 by three talented artists, Mariko Kaga as the narrator, Kazumi Yasui (安井かずみ) as the poet, and Katsuhisa Hattori (服部克久) as the composer of background musics for the poems. In addition, the photobook Private (『私生活』) was simultaneously released, and the album also includes some charming photos taken by the photographer Yoshihiro Tatsuki (立木義浩). For Kazumi Yasui, who was one of the most important lyricists in Japanese pop music, I will write another article one day.
These standard songs listed below are the background musics for narrative performance of Mariko Kaga.
- シェルブールの雨傘（I'll Wait for You, from Les Parapluies de Cherbourg）
- 恋よさようなら（I'll Never Fall In Love Again）
- THIS GUY'S IN LOVE WITH YOU
- 恋のひとこと（Something Stupid）
- 太陽がいっぱい（Plein Soleil）
- 青い影（Whiter Shadow of Pale）
- パリのめぐり逢い（Live for Life）
- 恋のアランフェス（Convierto de Aranjuez）
- IT MUST BE HIM
- GOOD MORNING STAR SHINE
- SOMETHING
- ラバーズ・コンチェルト（Loverｓ Conciert）
In the album, although there are certainly many resonaces of the culture in the 1960s, I smell at the same time corruption of naive optimism pervaded in Japan of the 1960s. None other than the smell makes this conceptual --but not experimental at all, indeed-- album lovely. A specific culture of the time is sometimes created by persons who do not fit in the time.
