I know I previously posted a link to a live performance heartbreaking Christmas love song called "Silent Eve" written and sung by Midori Karashima, but it has since been removed from YouTube. Midori Karashima is a lovely singer-songwriter I "discovered" during my brief Japan stint back in the early 90s.This song was extremely popular in Japan at that time. This song tells of a woman looking out at the people in the street in the snow, and it contrasts with her alone and lonely state on Christmas Eve, and her thoughts drift back to a past love.

The beauty and the loneliness of the season....

"Silent Eve":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edv3pdlO5wg

A live version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmgKIuHOdXQ

Japan street scenes to accompany the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkrxdwKXR80

I think that "Silent Eve" is a lovely song and it's so refreshing to hear a naturally beautiful voice. You may like my daughter's voice. I wrote a song called "Pink Sleep" [ not my lyrics] on the my 5th cd.

On another thought, that immortaliy issue....I remember my dad had the calm but my mom went out kickin'...sort of...

rada
www.pianoppassions.com

rada -

I am so glad you like that song. Yes, Midori Karashima has a beautiful, clear voice. I once had the great pleasure to attend a concert of hers when she went on tour to promote the CD on which "Silent Eve" appears. The best parts of the concert was when she just sat at the piano and sang and played by herself without any back-up at all from her band. I can't quite describe the magic spell she cast over the audience everytime she did this.

Yeah, I work as a respiratory therapist in a hospital, and I can tell you some patients go peacefully surrounded by their loved ones and like in the movies, and some go quite violently as if they were possessed by a demon. The hardest thing is to watch the small children and babies do so....

Although that quote in my signature about "immortality" appears in the film version of The Thin Red Line, it is actually taken from the James Jones novel which preceded The Thin Red Line called From Here to Eternity and adapted for the film. The character's name in The Thin Red Line is named Private Witt is actually reincarnated from a character in From Here to Eternity called Robert E. Lee PREWITT (as in "Before Witt"):

As she was dying his mother made him promise her one thing. "Promise me one thing, Robert," she wheezed at him. "From your father you got your pride and endurance and I knowed that you would need it. But one of you would have kilt the other if it hatnt of been for me. And now,I won't be standin atween you no more."

"I'll promise you anything you want, ma, whatever you say for me to promise, whatever it is you say," the boy, watching her die in front of him, looking at her above his haze of disbelief for signs of immortality, said woodenly.

"A deathbed promise is the most sacred one there is,"she hawked at him from lungs that were almost, but not quite, filled up yet, "and I want you to make me this promise on my deathbed; Promise me you wont never hurt nobody unless its absolute must, unless you just have to do it."

"I promise you," he vowed to her, still waiting for the angels to appear. "Are you afraid?" he said.

"Give me your hand on it, boy. It is a deathbed promise, and you'll never break it."

"Yes maam,' he said, giving her his hand, drawing it back quickly, afraid to touch the death he saw in her, unable to find anything beautiful or edifying or spiritually uplifting in her return to god. He watched a while longer for signs of immortality. No angels came, however, there was no earthquake, no cataclysm, and it was not until he had thought over this first death that he had a part in that he discovered the single uplifting thing about it, that being the fact that in this last great period of fear her thought had been upon his future, rather than her own. He wondered often after that about his own death, how it would come, how it would feel, what it would be like to know that this breath, now, was the last one. It was hard to accept that he, who was the hub of this known universe, would cease to exist, but it was an inevitability and he did not shun it. He only hoped that he would meet it with the same magnificent indifference with which she who had been his mother met it. Because it was there, he felt, that the immortality he had not seen was hidden.

Here is a link to the opening of the film. The relevant words uttered by Witt and in voice-over are from 2:20 to 4:37:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og2jmz6t2bE
You can see Witt's mother on her deathbed. She is stroking his hand as if to comfort him, even though it is she who is dying....

Gave me goose bumps. Beautiful song.

Domo arigato.

Iie, do itashimashite!

Author Topic: A Japanese Christmas love song...
DDS24P&FOP87

Well, that is very interesting.....that you work in a field that gives you a daily dose of mortality. It makes you wonder if our daily lives are so rapt in doing that we often miss the simple pleasures....as shown in this clip from the movie....I loved the singing as well...so ethnic and full of body.

rada

She has a beautiful sweet voice. Love it!

Her voice is just hauntingly beautiful and so is this song. Txs for sharing!

I am so pleased that this song and the beautiful singing seem to have deeply touched other people as well. There is now a version of this same music video with English subtitles(!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGiM-lS85us

And here is a link to the Japanese lyrics to the song in romaji:

masshiro na konayuki hito wa tachidomari
kokoro ga motomeru basho wo omoidasu no
ikutsumo ai wo kasanetemo hikiyosetemo
naze daiji na yoru ni anata wa inai no

sayounara wo kimeta koto wa kesshite anata no tame janai
fuan ni yureru KYANDORU kanashikatta kara
'tomodachi' tte iu RU-RU wa totemo muzukashii GE-MU ne
mou nidoto futari no koto wo jamashitari shinai

hontou wa daremo ga yasashiku naritai
soredemo tenshi ni hito wa narenai kara
me wo sorasazu ni omoide wa urumu keredo
utsuriyuku kisetsu ga PE-JI wo mekuru wa

sayounara wo kimeta koto wa kesshite anata no sei janai
kazatta hana mo KA-DO mo minna Merry Christmas for me
"tomodachi" tte hohoemu yori ima wa hitori de nagasete ne
mou ichido watashi no yume wo tsukamu made Silent Night

mou ichido watashi no yume wo tsukamu made Silent Night

Another recent, live version has been added a few days ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co2z9v7DLp4

For those that liked Midori Karashima's singing, here is an mp3 clip to one of the songs called "Anata No Ai Ni Naritai" on her new album:
http://tinyurl.com/2soaef

Loved it, DDS24P&FOP87 (don't you have a first name that's easier to type ). Thanks for posting it.

I think I've listened to Silent Eve about 10 times now. Love her voice (and the song).

Two more live performances of "Silent Eve" have been added:

In concert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjpDJYc6kpc

In a TV studio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF64qkO_DNs&feature=related