There’s bound to be songs that you’ve heard a long, long time ago that you’re having trouble recalling years or even decades later. One day, curiously, a part of the song just pops in your head. This could either be the chorus, the beat, the singer or suddenly recalling a fond memory you’ve experienced and part of that involves the mysterious song you’re having so much trouble remembering. Imagine if that song originated from another country than your own, and how much harder searching for it would be?! You have no information on the artist/band name nor the lyrics itself as it’s not in your native language. Well, this happened to me a couple of months ago.

Out of the blue one day, I reminisced on a friend of mine back in high school. Being that she was born in Japan, I remembered chatting with her about their culture, food and tourist locations. With us being both music heads, I got to listen to some of the best songs she compiled from Japan. One song stuck with me, and I wasn’t going to rest until I found it. Fortunately, it was an extremely popular Japanese pop song in the 1980s. It’s quite literally one of those songs that once you hear it, you must have sworn that you’ve likely heard it before from somewhere.

Here in episode #8, I want to pay tribute to Miki Matsubara and her chart topping song, Stay With Me. I love listening to old school Japanese pop songs. Many of them are typically upbeat and just makes you feel good. Unfortunately, while Stay With Me definitely sounds upbeat, it’s really a tragedy song. Another unfortunate tidbit of information I discovered is that she actually regretted her music career afterward and wished that no one would listen to it anymore, as it likely didn’t have an effect on anyone. She felt that she had spent so much of her time on tour to promote her music career that it prevented her from spending it with her loved ones instead. She passed away in 2004 at the young age of only 44 due to cancer. It was only after learning this that I’m sure many others as well will now listen to this song along with any other from her career with a very different perspective.