Keizo Nakanishi -- Ticket to Paradise

I heard "Ticket to Paradise"through Keizo Nakanishi's（中西圭三） first BEST compilation, "SINGLES"(1994), and it quickly became one of my favourites among a lot of his great songs. Nakanishi's 5th single, which was released in July 1992, immediately got my toes-a-tapping when I first heard it, and as much as I like his most successful single, the ballad "Woman", which had been released half a year earlier, the Okayama Prefecture native can come up with some great uptempo stuff such as "Choo Choo Train" for the groups Zoo and Exile.

The above is a video from his 1993 concert at NK Hall. Just love that beat that propels the song through. Nakanishi was indeed responsible for the melody while Masao Urino（売野雅勇）came up with the lyrics. According to an Ameblo blog, the song only got as high as No. 24 on the Oricon weeklies, but an extended version of the single (the video at the top) got onto Nakanishi's 3rd album, "Steps", released in March 1993, and the album was able to hit the top spot. The song was also used as the ending theme for one of Beat Takeshi's variety shows at the time.