https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g02154/mayonaka-no-door-the-story-behind-a-100-million-play-youtube-phenomenon.html
Mayonaka no Door: The Story Behind a 100 Million-Play YouTube Phenomenon
Japan’s “city pop” music has enjoyed a surge in international popularity in recent years. The track of the moment is Matsubara Miki’s disco-tinged 1979 hit “Mayonaka no Door/Stay with Me,” which recently topped Spotify’s Global Viral 50 for 18 days straight, broke Apple Music’s J-pop top 10 in 92 different markets, and has already racked up over 100 million plays on YouTube. Songwriter Hayashi Tetsuji talks about his song’s staggering revival.
A Bold Songwriting Request
Picture the scene: It‘s 1979, and up-and-coming songwriter Hayashi Tetsuji receives a new request from Kaneko Haruhiko, director of prominent record label Pony Canyon. “He wanted a song for this new female singer,” Hayashi recalls, “But that it had to have an all-out Western pop feel to it. Back then, even when you got an order for a ‘Western-style’ song, the norm was to also include a kayōkyoku Japanese pop dimension just to make sure it would sell in the home market. But for this piece, Kaneko said I could forget about that entirely, which I remember thinking was quite a bold move.”
The result was Matsubara Miki’s debut single “Mayonaka no Door/Stay with Me” (Midnight Door/Stay with Me), released on November 5 that same year. It was Hayashi’s recognized knack for coming up with strong songs and arrangements before the addition of any lyrics that saw Kaneko reach out. But even so, the songsmith remembers, it was the first time he had been tasked with creating a melody specifically to suit English words:
“We didn’t have any lyrics up front, and I hadn’t met Miki either. I’d been told she had a background in jazz singing, but at that stage I don’t think I’d even seen her picture. I often used to come up with melodies having at least had a look at a vocalist’s photo and hearing their singing voice. But for this one, my overriding memory is the absence of any guidance other than ‘make it Western style.’ I suppose Kaneko’s idea was that supplying as little advance information as possible would give me the absolute freedom to come up with something interesting.”
One of three Hayashi compositions on Matsubara’s debut album, the 1980 Pocket Park, “Mayonaka no Door” was chosen from several candidates to become the flagship single. “As instructed, I came up with a melody tailored for English lyrics and submitted the score to Kaneko along with a demo tape. Back then, I used to set up a drum machine and sing along while playing my guitar and taping it all on a boombox. I used a semi-acoustic guitar without running it through an amp, and the natural resonance of the body gave a dry, cutting tone that provided a cool-sounding complement to the overall vibe.”
Upon its release, the single was a major hit, selling over 100,000 copies, according to music industry record-keepers Oricon. But did Hayashi realize at the time that he was onto something special? “I feel like ‘Mayonaka no Door’ was born from a convergence of chance and necessity,” he responds. “I always used to write my tracks with a Western pop sensibility, but when drafting the scores to hand in, I would often find myself making adjustments: tweaking a melody line to better suit Japanese vocals, or perhaps leaving something alone if it gave a unique feel. But with ‘Mayonaka,’ I didn’t tweak anything, because the melody was already composed with English in mind. I thought it was a good tune, but I don’t remember feeling unusually confident about it.”
Unfortunately the singer, Miki Matsubara, never saw her second episode of success, dying from cancer aged 44 years.
As good as it gets, A Class City Pop x
