Monday, October 12, 2015

The Nostalgia Series - Old drama theme songs: "tears" by Fayray

To be perfectly honest, I don't remember much about the drama which used this song as its theme. Either that drama didn't leave such a deep impression on me or time must have eroded my memories of it since this drama is already 15 years old. In any case, what I can say for sure is that, the song certainly stuck with me longer in my mind as compared to the drama.

Fayray is a singer-songwriter who made her debut in 1998 and was active during the late 90s to around 2009. The first time I saw Fayray was actually in a drama i.e. FujiTV's 2000 drama "Nisennen no Koi" which starred Nakayama Miho and Kaneshiro Takeshi. That drama attracted a lot of attention then because it was the first to be simulcast in Singapore with Japan but unfortunately, the story was a huge letdown. Nonetheless, Fayray did catch my attention with her cool mannerisms on screen but I had no idea then that she was a singer. Later, Fayray also acted with Nakai Masahiro in NTV's "Densetsu no Kyoshi".

This song "tears" was released in the same year but for another drama i.e. TBS summer 2000 drama "Friends" which featured Hamada Masatoshi and Wakui Emi as the leads with supporting cast members such as Takeuchi Yuko, Suzuki Sawa, Yamaguchi Tatsuya from TOKIO, Naito Takashi and Osugi Ren. Like I said above, I hardly remembered this drama and it was not only till I did research for the background of this song that this drama came up in my mind again. For a moment, I actually thought that another drama with the same title (the 2002 Japan-South Korea joint production starring Fukada Kyoko and Won Bin) had this song as the theme but the year of release didn't match.

Although I don't remember much of the drama, this song stuck with me so much that I bought her single at that time. In fact, this was the only single of hers that I bought. 15 years ago, it was not so easy to buy Japanese singles from the Internet as my Japanese proficiency was elementary at best, I had difficulty navigating the online stores and online commerce wasn't that developed yet. As such, I could only buy this from our local HMV store at Heeren back in those days where Japanese-imported CDs cost a fortune and needed a long wait for the orders to be filled.

Back then, I thought Fayray's voice had such a soulful appeal and her rendition of this song was so memorable that it didn't take too long for me to remember it. It's been so many years since I last heard this song so while writing this post, it's nice to be able to hear this again as if I'm reconnecting with an old friend. This song is talking about a lost love and how regretful the person is thus the heavy sadness in the melody and lyrics written by Fayray herself. This single remains to date, the bestselling one from Fayray.

If you wish to listen to this song, please view here.

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