Chihiro Album

From Music Scrapbook

Album Details

Title: Chihiro
Author: Andrew Summers
Recorded: 2009
Released: Fall 2009
Length: ?

Track listing

Notes

One of the first singers from Japan I often listened to during high school and college was a singer named Chihiro Onitsuka. She's kind of the Karen Carpenter (mixed with the singer named Jewel,) of Japanese popular music. She writes a lot of ballads. Anyway, when I first heard her songs I was intrigued because it sounded as though she might be a Christian.

For the past month or so I've been listening to music from the Carpenters which reminded me of Chihiro Onitsuka. That prompted me to go back and re-listen to some of her songs. But as I read the lyrics and looked at the progression of Chihiro's music compared to Karen Carpenter's music... it made me wonder. Wonder things like... why people don't mind idly sitting by while someone might be dealing with hard times. Obviously, who am I to tell someone what to do. I know. At the same time, I don't want to have kept silent if it would have helped to say something to someone in need. I'd rather err on the side of caution. But also write these things out of love and not condemnation.

For that reason I set out to create a letter in the form of a song for Chihiro Onitsuka as a way to somehow encourage her. It's not something I plan to do again in the near future... and it might not have been the best thing to do either, but with prayer and many days of writing and rewriting... rewording and crossing lines of the song out... the song has finally been completed.

I sent this album to Chihiro around fall of the same year. I never heard back about if the album actually arrived... or if she even listened to it... but it's okay. I just hope that it can make some sort of difference.