Hawaii Profiles - Seiko Matsuda

I was a relatively young sailor on liberty in Sasebo, Japan in 1987. Our submarine had just moored and everyone was excited to get off the boat and see the sights. One of my main objectives was to visit a music store and find a local artist whose voice would charm me and whose music would enchant me. When I actually found a music store, I was overwhelmed.

Cassette tapes were still popular then and the walls of the store were lined with cassette after cassette after cassette ... as if the decor was intentionally designed to be a collage of cassette tiles and related posters. How I could choose ONE singer and ONE tape out of the thousands of choices was beyond my limited senses.

BUT ... just when I was about to give up and walk out of the store and forego my flimsical whim ... a small photo caught my eye. It was very small - small enough to fit on the SIDE of a cassette tape jacket. It was also more than 25 feet away from me and camouflaged amongst the other tapes in its category.

YET ... it seemed to call me ... SHE seemed to be looking right at me and beckoning me with her soft, alluring expression. I went to the cassette, took it off the shelf and looked at the larger photo on the front. WOW, I loved the photo.

Since this was a smaller music store and since I was still a little reluctant to try to talk to the someone for fear of not being able to understand him or her, I just looked at the photo for a few minutes and replaced the cassette. I was a poor sailor and did not have alot of money so "common sense" prevailed and I decided NOT to buy the cassette at that time.

After all, why should I buy cassette of someone I never heard just because I liked her photo? You don't judge a book by its cover, RIGHT? Right! So I left.

We went out to sea for a few weeks and that little photo kept haunting my mind. What in the world was going on? I kept trying to stop thinking about it, but I couldn't. Well, when we pulled back into Sasebo, I immediately went to the little music store and ... looked at the photo again. But I did not buy the cassette. It would have helped if I had had a cassette player, but I didn't. So I left.

Once again, we went out to sea and once again that little photo kept haunting my mind.

I couldn't even pronounce her name ...

Finally, I resolved myself to buy a cd player and buy a cd of Seiko Matsuda no matter what she sounded like. We eventually pulled into Yokosoka, Japan, just outside of Tokyo, and a few of us decided to see the big city. I was astounded to see a gigantic, full-screen image of a live sumo tournament ON THE SIDE OF A SKY SCRAPER!!!!! The Hard Rock Cafe even had a life sized figure of King Kong on the outside of the building looking into the Cafe. At the time, the Tokyo Disneyland had the largest land mass of all the Disneylands.

So it made sense that the music department was contained on multiple floors within one of the largest department stores within one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo. Not only was I excited to be in Tokyo and excited to finally be able to buy a Seiko Matsuda cd, but I was also somewhat intimidated by the overwhelming culture shock of the entire situation. Afterall, I was born and raised in a tiny midwestern city ... Chicago!!!

I made my way up to the station where customers were allowed to listen to certain cds. I somehow asked the clerk if I could listen to the album with the photo I loved - Snow Garden by Seiko Matsuda. I was so excited ... I was finally going to hear her voice. So the clerk put the cd into the player and I started to listen to the first song ...

The first song on the Snow Garden cd is called Please Don't Go ... and the first eight plus minutes of the song are of a train station scenerio with no singing whatsoever! I listened and listened and listened and one minute lead to two minutes which lead to four minutes which lead to ... NO SINGING YET! I was still a little intimidated so after over six minutes I put the headphones down and just looked at the cd photo again. I was vexed and perplexed and somewhat embarrassed ... and I did not buy the cd. So I left.

Well, to make a short story long, we went out to sea again and her image kept haunting my mind and I went insane ... so insane that I made a second further resolution to buy a cd player and her cd no matter what. When we pulled back into Sasebo, I immediately went to the AFEES exchange, bought a cd player and then went to our friendly neighborhood music store and bought the Snow Garden cd. Yes, I did.

And I LOVED HER VOICE. I adored her voice. I was enchanted by her voice. For the next two years, I could listen to nothing else except her voice. I bought a few more cds in Sasebo and even more cds in Hong Kong at a significantly reduced price. My total count of Seiko Matsuda cds has reached 25 and I eventually plan to buy as many as I possibly can.

To this day, over 17 years after I bought her first cd, I am still enchanted by Seiko Matsuda's voice and music. I never learned Japanese so I have no idea what any of her songs mean. But, I loved some of her songs so well that I wrote my own lyrics to her music so I could sing along to her songs. These lyrics were not translations, they were original lyrics set to her music. The following pages are my tribute to the only true artistist, singer, star, personality who I would do anything to meet just once in my life.

My personal collection of Seiko Matsuda books, posters, magazines & CDs