The clock continues to tick the time away as the night approaches. It’s almost the new year. The road to a joyful future looks hard and long. This year has been one to remember and not for good reasons. Disease, Racism and the last breath for human decency have made the world a hard place to live in. But we’re still here. And regardless if everything goes well or not in the future, we can still breathe today. That’s the beauty of life. Welcome to Midnight Radio.
Tonight, we’re continuing our drive into the retroactive genre known as City Pop. yesterday, we went over one of the defining songs of the genre, “Plastic Love”, by the phenom, Mariya Takeuchi. For this evening’s song, we’ll be playing a tune that is the ultimate melancholy. Tonight’s song is Miki Matsubara’s hit song. “Stay With Me”.
Born and raised in Japan, Miki Matsunbara started off in Japan in 1979 through her hit song, “Stay With Me”. While she worked primarily in Japan, Matsubara’s work has been known worldwide via her work in various animations as an anime singer and songwriter. While her work has gained renown, especially in the current trend of reviving retro music, not much is known about Matsubara’s personal life. In 2001, Matsubara was diagnosed with cervical cancer and ultimately put her career on hold to combat the disease. Unfortunately, Miki Matsubara passed away from her disease in 2004 at the young age of 44. While it is extremely sad that Matsubara passed away so young, she has left an endearing legacy through her music that many fans around the world can remember her by.
Tonight, we’ll be going over one of the most famous songs of Matsubara’s career. Ultimately, this song is one of the anthems for Japanese city pop, alongside “Plastic City”. Join us as we listen to this evening’s song of the night, “Stay with Me”.
Starting with steady beats and a falsetto intro, Matsubara tells her sad story of breaking up. Through the first verse, Matsubara draws the image of a relationship, one that is about to end due to the differences between both individuals. “I am only me, you are only you”.
As Matsubara continues to the next verse, she notices that the person she’s with is still the same, wearing the same type of clothing that they’ve always worn. As time goes on, she asks this person to stay as it’s the perfect season to be in love.
In the iconic chorus, Matsubara practically begs for them to stay, a moment that she will always remember.
Stay with me Saying our favourite words Holding on to our little moment (Ooh) I'll never forget how warm it felt
In the second stanza, Matsubara and her acquaintance are far away from each other. She still thinks about this person, to the point that she plays the same song everyday as her loneliness grows by each passing night.
After a romantic jazz solo that accents the song’s groovy beat, Matsubara repeats her famed chorus, all the bit with a more melancholic tone as she continues to beg her lover to stay, a motion that she realizes is all too futile as they drift further away from her.
While “Stay with Me” came out in the middle of the 1980’s, the song has had an everlasting effect in the late 2010’s as the song experienced a revival with an influx of other city pop songs. Due to the remixes of countless artists and multiple uploads on YouTube, Matsubara’s song has been enjoyed by millions of people worldwide with the official YouTube video of the song having over 28 million views and forcing PonyCanyon, the music company who owns the rights to the song, to release a music video over 30 years since the songs debut. During the pandemic, children of Japanese mothers would make TikTok videos of their parents singing along to the song.
While many fans of the song are ultimately sad that Matsubara wasn’t able to experience the popularity of her song, there is a newfound fascination in the songs that she released pre-humously. As is with time, people come and people go but the legacies we live behind remain forever as long as they are remembered. Matsubara and “Stay with Me” is just one of the many legacies that will forever be linked to the genre that is City Pop.
It’s been an interesting week in our stay in Japan’s city pop genre. However, due to recent developments, we will be moving on to another genre, or rather, another segment as we end our city pop tour with one last feature. Our last look into city pop brings us to an iconic album performed by a legendary jazz fusion band from Japan. If you know, you know and if you don’t, you’ll be extremely excited for what we have planned for our next set.
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