Hibari Misora -- Suteki na Rendezvous （素適なランデブー）

Here I was, having just seen the latest "Uta Kon"（うたコン）a couple of nights ago and enjoying the performance of "O-Matsuri Mambo"（お祭りマンボ）by the Eternal Queen of Kayo Kyoku, Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）, that I was going to write about it. However, I realized that I had already written about it over 3 years ago. Such is my crumbly memory and the fact that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" has lasted as long as it already has.

Well, I wasn't going to be discouraged from putting up a Misora song so easily. It took a little time but I did manage to find one of her happy-go-lucky kayo from all the way back in 1955. "Suteki na Rendezvous" (A Wonderful Rendezvous) is not only a song whose cheerful music and lyrics rang off some memory engrams in my head but it was a tune used in the first of a series of movies starring the Sannin Musume（三人娘...The Three Girls）, the trio consisting of Japanese cinematic starlets, Misora, Izumi Yukimura（雪村いづみ）and Chiemi Eri（江利チエミ）when they would have been graduating from high school. The movie was titled "Janken Musume"（ジャンケン娘）which literally translated as "Rock, Paper and Scissors Girls" but is known less awkwardly in English as "So Young, So Bright".

Written and composed by Rokuro Hara（原六郎）, who had also created the aforementioned "O-Matsuri Mambo", "Suteki na Rendezvous" is notable for that catchy melody which, if it had been made in Hollywood, would have been great for any sort of 1950s musical based in Gay Paree starring an older Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly or Danny Kaye (as for the starring women, I would have had either Nanette Fabray or Debbie Reynolds sing it). Plus it has those lines "ren-ren-ren-ren-rendezvous, I-I-I-I-I love you" which have been the most memorable part of the song for me.

Although the song is performed just by Misora, I've still included Yukimura and Eri in the Labels merely for sentiment. And the ladies do perform a small part of it together up above many years later. It's a poignant scene since of the three, only Yukimura is still alive.