Wednesday, August 12, 2009

music. kotaro oshio - merry christmas mr lawrence

this must be the most poignant song ever.

i travel on sea on a weekly basis.
everytime the weather turns gloomy, gray skies cast a sad tone across the ocean. its the time when the sky and the sea meet in the horizon of somberness.

its a sad scene, and it makes me wanna grab my mp3 player and listen to this song: “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by Kotaro Oshio”. it’s the perfect tune to listen when you are in the mood to cry for no valid reason……you just want to cry coz … the weather is crying too? drama ra?

i first heard the dance vesrion of this song back in high school when i bought a cassette album containing trance anthems of the late 90s. included on that compilation is Watergate’s trance remix of this ryuichi sakamoto classic. i remember listening to it in my trusty walkman over and over, heaven knows what happened to my walkman.
of all the versions ive listened to, kotaro oshio’s guitar solo rendition truly deserves my thumbs up. at first, i thought a number of instruments were involved in the recording of this acoustic version – a harp, a guitar and some percussions etc… but when i saw his live performance on video, i was amazed to find out that everything is a solo act. it was only him and the guitar, and it’s so genius of him to make it sound like a collaboration of musicians and instruments.



the video shown here is not by kotaro, its only a cover of his original version. this guy's performance has a nice audio quality that’s why im posting it here, even if theres something a bit off in the main part. i still dig it.

the song “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” is composed by ryuichi sakamoto as a soundtrack of a movie of the same title.

merry christmas mr lawrence the movie was released in 1983 and was directed by Nagisa Oshima. It stars prominent actors like David Bowie, Takeshi Kitano and Sakamoto himself among others.

hmmmm, it is interesting to note that this film has a take on an taboo issue – that is, homosexual relationships among military men and prisoners of war! now, can somebody give me a copy of this film.

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