An unreleased song by the late Taiwanese pop singer Teresa Teng, who took East Asia by storm from the 1970s to 1990s, has been discovered in Japan and will be released in June, a source familiar with the matter said Thursday.
The light pop song, likely recorded in the mid-1980s, was a joint work of composer Takashi Miki and lyricist Toyohisa Araki, the duo behind Teng's hits in Japan, including "Toki no Nagare ni Mi wo Makase" (Give yourself to the flow of time).
File photo taken in February 1984 shows Taiwanese pop singer Teresa Teng. (Kyodo)
The song, with a tone different from Teng's dramatic Japanese melodies, such as "Tsugunai" (Atonement), will be included in a three-CD album of Miki's compositions to be released on June 25, according to the source.
An official of Universal Music LLC found the song recorded on a tape stored in a warehouse in Tokyo several years ago while trying to sort past recordings.
As the song was untitled, Araki named it "Love Song wa Yogiri ga Osuki," which translates as "Love songs like fog at night."
It is rare for an unreleased recording to survive on tape for recordings were expensive at the time and tapes were repeatedly reused, with pieces often recorded over previous recordings.
Hideto Hanabata, president of Soramusic Inc., which manages songs composed by Miki, said he is "deeply moved" by the fact that a newly discovered song will be a part of the new album, whose release this year coincides with the 80th anniversary year of his birth. Miki died in 2009.
Teng was a singer in Taiwan and Hong Kong before debuting in Japan in 1974. She was also popular in China and Southeast Asia but died at age 42 due to ill health while staying in Thailand in May 1995.
It’s like this picture of a milkman walking through the bombed-out streets of London during the Blitz:
Yes, there’s a war on, but someone has to deliver the damn milk!