Christmas Eve at the train station

“Christmas Eve at the train station”

I will share this song and music video as my little “Christmas card” this year!

A song by Japanese singer-songwriter Tatsuro Yamashita was used by a Japanese bullet train company for their holiday advertisements in the late 1980s and early 90s.

YouTube user OH IN has put together several of these commercials, and provides us with Mr. Yamashita’s full song “Christmas Eve” here.

The commercials show families and several young couples getting together for the holidays. However, the bullet trains are not actually shown very much.

I like the first commercial the best. It looks like something right out of one of those rom-coms my wife always watches on the LifeTime Network. See time 56 seconds in the video above: The young man does not realize it yet, but he is about to have a very Merry Christmas.

The message is that the Japan Rail train company makes it all possible. Holiday travel can be exciting, as well as chaotic. Hopes and romance are in the air. Couples are reunited … all thanks to the JR Line.

They only show the train briefly at the end of each commercial. This reminds me a lot of commercials that do not really show you the product. I can remember the Zen-like commercials for the Infiniti (Japanese car), where they never actually showed the automobile anywhere in the commercial … but yes … I digress.

I think that this Christmas song very much has a 1980s feel to it. You get a good look at Japan in the late 1980s in the commercials. I may have actually been there in an alternative life timeline. The 80s/90s era was the heyday for Mr. Yamashita-san and his “City-Pop” music. All of his albums are great, and are worth checking out.

Although the music video above is sung in Japanese, I think that the warmth of the music, and Tat’s singing make it enjoyable for anyone — in any language. If you want, the words in English are linked here.

If you want to hear him sing the English-version of this 1988 song, it is linked on another YouTube video below.

.Enjoy … at least until the Tech-Grinches at YouTube cancels Christmas again!