Yoshitaka Minami/Hiromi Go -- Monroe Walk (Sexy You)

A bit of "Copacabana"for you. Yoshitaka Minami's（南佳孝）6th single in April 1979 was a fun slice of tropical disco. "Monroe Walk" always reminded me of that famous quote in Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot" in which Jack Lemmon described Marilyn Monroe's character as "Jello on springs". Strangely enough, though Minami composed the song, it was lyricist Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ） who came up with the lascivious words as Minami describes a woman down in Jamaica doing that swivel-hipped walk with all the attributes that follow. The arranger was none other than Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）of YMO.

(cover version)

About a year later, aidoru-turning-Casanova singer Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ） had his moment with Minami's song. At the time, Minami had gone overseas on some sort of extended break from singing, so his agency, who also represented Go and wanted to keep the income flowing in, had the title altered to "Sexy You" along with some of the lyrics and gave the go-ahead to Go to go for (yes, I did write that on purpose). The thinking was that none of Go's fans would frankly know the difference, and since Minami was out of the country, after all.... Lyricist Kisugi was reportedly none too pleased, though she and Minami kept their credits.

Still, the agency came out of any turmoil looking pretty shrewd. According to the website blog.oricon.co.jp/kajiyan, the original version peaked at just No. 38 on the Oricon weeklies and sold around 100,000 records; it didn't break the yearly Top 100. However, Go's cover peaked at No. 11, ended up in 73rd-place (admittedly still not a major hit) in 1980 and sold around 200,000 records. Amazing what a heartthrob aidoru and steel drums can do for a song. Yes, it was the first time that steel drums were used in a Japanese pop song, and they were even given the grand introduction on one of the music shows when Go appeared to perform it.