May 27th, 2000

Yesterday I went to Wakayama to appear in NHK's "BS Japanese Songs" with Sachiko Kobayashi, Yukio Hashi, and Kiyoshi Nakajo. The men's team had it easy each having to sing his own song. The women's team had to sing more. I sang "Vacance de l'amour" in a duet with Sachiko besides my own song, "Charmed", and after that, everyone in the women's team sang "Innocence of Asia", which in fact required a lot of practice! I had not at all understood the meaning of the song, and I had not been able to sleep at night trying to memorize it.
I lay in bed with a tape-recorder at my side, you know. I was staring at the lyrics card all night long. "Beijing, Berlin, Dublin, Liberia, forming a bunch, forming a ring, ..... Iran, Afghan, let me listen, 'balalaika' ..... the mouse, and the keys, kibun eleven, ... shall we try to access ....."
Ahhhhhhh, yes, now I get it! Suddenly I jumped out of bed in the middle of the night, when it occurred to me that this was a song about the Internet. When it's eleven o'clock at night, with a click of the mouse and hitting of the keys, it is Internet time, when everyone accesses the web and the world becomes Asia. I see ..... I felt satisfied in a strange way with myself with that understanding, and was even moved (though I was a little slow.) 　This convinced me that Yosui Inoue is indeed a very talented person. I managed to do well during the actual take, but I was so nervous the preceding few days that I could not have even a mouthful to eat. After the recording was over, I had a one-hour trip back to the hotel. I was so hungry that I ate all of the emergency food that the bus guide gave me. I must have been really tense. I would like to say thank you so much to the bus guide. And thank you to "Innocence of Asia." It was a very good kind of tension that I had experienced and I have really come to like the song now.
NHK-BS-II "BS Japanese Songs" will be broadcasted from 8:45 through 10:15 AM on June 10th.