Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of A Long Vacation, a Milestone in City Pop

Please take this opportunity to listen to this song!

Overview

A Long Vacation is an album by Japanese musician Eiichi Ohtaki, released on March 21, 1981. It sold over a million copies and was named "Best Album" at the 23rd Japan Record Awards. It has been called one of the greatest Japanese rock albums of all time, including by Rolling Stone Japan.

Background

Several songs on A Long Vacation were influenced by American record producer Phil Spector and his Wall of Sound formula. But the closing track, "Farewell Trans-Siberian Railway", was intended as a tribute to English record producer Joe Meek.

All three of Ohtaki's former Happy End bandmates contributed to A Long Vacation; Takashi Matsumoto wrote the lyrics for every song except one, Shigeru Suzuki contributed guitar, and Haruomi Hosono played bass guitar.

Although having never been to the Canary Islands, Matsumoto wrote "Canary Islands Nite" based on how he imagined it to be and on the assumption that it was like Hawaii. When he finally did visit in 1999 for a Carlos Kleiber performance, he found it very different.

"Farewell Trans-Siberian Railway" was first released as a single by Hiromi Ota in November 1980.

"Fun x 4" features backing vocals by Hiromi Ota, Rats & Star and Hiroaki Igarashi. The end of the song includes the line "Fun, fun, fun now that daddy took the t-bird away" from the Beach Boys' 1964 song "Fun, Fun, Fun".

The album is also known by the nickname Ronbake , an abbreviation of its title in Japanese.

Track listing

All lyrics written by Takashi Matsumoto, except track 4, written by Eiichi Ohtaki, all music composed by Eiichi Ohtaki.

Side A
No. Title Length
1. "Kimi wa Tennen Shoku" 5:02
2. "Velvet Motel" 3:42
3. "Canary Islands Nite" 3:58
4. "Pap-Pi-Doo-Bi-Doo-Ba Story" 3:14
5. "Waga Kokoro no Pinball" 4:24
Side B
No. Title Length
6. "Ame no Wednesday" 4:24
7. "Speech Balloon" 3:55
8. "Koisuru Karen" 3:21
9. "Fun x 4" 3:26
10. "Farewell Trans-Siberian Railway" 4:33

Personnel

Guitar - Hiromi Yasuda, Takuji Mihata, Toshiaki Usui, Toru Fukuyama, Eiji Kawamura, Makoto Matsushita, Mikihiko Matsumiya, Chuei Yoshikawa, Hirofumi Tokutake, Kunio Muramatsu, Shigeru Suzuki
L. Perc - Eiji Narushima, Yoshiyuki Kato, Tatsuji Yokoyama, Masato Kawase, Taro Fussafussa, Larry Sunaga, Noboru Takasugi, Shigemitsu Katayama, Masami Kawahara, Kimura Kimuchi
Keyboards - Hidetoshi Yamada, Naoko Yamanaka, Koji Suzuki, Akira Inoue, Elton Nagata, Yasuharu Nakanishi, Fumitaka Anzai, Kazufumi Ohama, Gako Ikawa, Yumin Teishu
Bass - Shogo Kindaichi, Michio Nagaoka, Haruomi Hosono, Kimio Koizumi, Yasuo Arakawa
Drums - Hiroshi Uehara, Tatsuo Hayashi
Chorus - Singers Three, Oshamanbe Cats, Kayoko Ishu, Rajie
Flute - Jake H. Concepcion
Trumpet - Koji Yoshioka
Marimba, timpany - Isao Kanayama
Strings - Norio Maeda, Masataka Matsutoya

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