My Personal Best 15: Yuming Edition – #14 “Machibuse” — A Closer Look

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🎸 [Yumi Matsutoya] Edition – No. 14 is…

The 14th place goes to “Machibuse” (Lying in Wait).

This is an incredibly famous song that remains in the history of Kayokyoku, depicting “love tactics.” The protagonist takes the action of “lying in wait.” Mixed within this act are pure love, and contrary to that, the cunningness to try to control the other person, and above all, deep loneliness.

Even after many years since its release, just hearing the minor chords of the intro brings back the damp air of a coffee shop at dusk. However, to listen to this song merely as a “wholehearted unrequited love” is difficult because the depicted emotions are too multi-layered, even suggesting a certain kind of obsession.

Instead of directly expressing “I love you,” she pretends it’s a coincidence, closing in on him like filling a moat, and corners him. The aesthetics of this “quiet strategy” depicted by Yuming make this song a unique piece of “Pop Noir.”

Super Summary

A coffee shop at twilight. “You” and “that girl” are smiling at each other in the center of former companions. The protagonist stares at this scene across the table, quietly but surely sharpening her fangs.

It is not mere jealousy, but “time waiting for prey” based on the conviction that she is the one who is suitable. Pretending to be a coincidence and waiting on the way home. Showing a love letter from someone else out of spite. It is a story where a single woman’s exposed passion and calculated shrewdness coexist within such distorted expressions of love.

First, please watch the official video.

✅ Official Video Credits
Song Title: Machibuse (Lying in Wait)
Artist: Yumi Matsutoya (Yumi Arai)
Lyrics/Composition: Yumi Arai
YouTube Source: Yumi Matsutoya Official Channel
📝 Short Commentary
Originally provided to Seiko Miki in 1976, this song later became a national hit covered by Hitomi Ishikawa. Introduced here is a self-cover by the author, Yuming herself. The monochrome stylish video combined with her unique ennui-filled singing highlights an adult and dangerous “woman’s obsession,” contrasting sharply with the purity of Ishikawa’s version.

Basic Song Information: Release and Historical Background

Release / Changes in Recorded Albums

“Machibuse” was produced in 1976 when Yuming was active as Yumi Arai. Born as a provided song, this piece was an important work that made Yuming’s talent as a writer known to the world. Her own singing was officially recorded in the best album “YUMI ARAI 1972-1976” released in 1996 and later self-cover albums.

How did the standard-bearer of the New Music world at the time interpret the world of “emotion” typical of Kayokyoku and incorporate it into her own urban sound? An exquisite melting point exists in this song.

Charts and the Atmosphere of the 1980s

With Hitomi Ishikawa’s version (she was super cute, wasn’t she!!) becoming a hit in 1981, this song became a standard across generations. In the early 1980s, amidst the premonition of the frenzy heading towards the bubble economy, the “loneliness in a corner of a coffee shop” held by this song had a strange reality.

When I was transitioning from a senior in college to my first year as a working adult, I heard this melody everywhere in the city. While flashy resort vibes and the disco boom covered the surface, inside individuals, the “unspeakable obsession” and “narrow universe” depicted in this song definitely existed.

Multifaceted Analysis of the Song “Machibuse”

Psychological Depths of the Act of “Lying in Wait”

The core of this song lies in the act of not leaving the encounter to fate, but fabricating “coincidence” with one’s own hands.

Calculation and Loneliness Pretending to be Coincidence

The phrase in the lyrics, “I’ll pretend it’s a coincidence and wait for you on the way home.” This depicts a high-level and dangerous psychological warfare: trying to stage a “fateful reunion” without letting the other person realize her affection.

Discarding the purity of confessing feelings and waiting for the other person to notice her. This stance, which should be called passive aggressiveness, was a new psychological depiction of women presented by New Music at the time. Rather than a straightforward confession, this refracted approach pierces sharply into the possessiveness deep within the human heart.

Cold-blooded Observational Eye towards “That Girl”

The protagonist’s gaze is directed not only at “you,” whom she loves, but also at her rival, “that girl.” “The reason that girl suddenly became beautiful is because she’s meeting you like this, isn’t it?” This phrase contains a cold-blooded analysis that goes beyond jealousy.

She instantly sees through the reason for the other’s beauty and keeps it inside her own heart. The perspective as an “observer” in Yuming’s lyrics functions in the most suspenseful form in this song. The protagonist’s eyes, staring at the smiling couple across the table, harbor the sharpness of a leopard waiting for prey in a quiet forest.

“Coffee Shop Culture” Synchronizing with the Historical Background

From the 1970s to the 80s, coffee shops were not just eateries for young people, but small theaters where dramas were born.

Emotion Born from a Closed Space

“A coffee shop I peeked into at a street corner at dusk.” This limited spatial setting highlights the closed-room passion of the song. The glances exchanged through the window, the emotions swirling without words in the cigarette smoke, were the very “heat with nowhere to go” that young people felt in their daily lives at the time.

When I took my first steps as a working adult, there must have been many people playing Yuming’s songs in their brains while thinking of someone in the corner of such a coffee shop. Urban and sophisticated, yet hiding a muddy obsession underneath. That duality fit the atmosphere of the time perfectly.

Aesthetics Supported by Sound and Singing

“Adult Machibuse” Taught by Self-Cover

While Hitomi Ishikawa’s transparent singing voice gave a sense of a “girl trying to act grown-up,” Yuming’s singing, which can be heard in the YouTube video, stands on a completely different horizon.

Dry Texture and Overwhelming Composure

Yuming’s vocals have a “dryness” that doesn’t drown in emotion. This dry texture neutralizes the heaviness of the lyrics and gives the song dignity as pop music. “I loved you, deep in my heart, all along.” Even this monologue, when sung by her, doesn’t feel tragic but rather gives a sense of adult composure, as if she is looking down at herself and enjoying it.

Her delicate movements and the gaze staring at one point shown in the video. That is not the figure of a woman crazy about love, but that of an actress perfectly playing the stage of her own life. This sense of “acting” is the true essence of the artist Yumi Matsutoya, sublimating passion into stylish art.

Reason for Choosing No. 14 in Best 15

With Respect for “Beautiful Obsession”

Yuming has countless masterpieces, but no other song depicts “the hidden nature of human beings” so vividly in the field of pop music as this “Machibuse.”

Undoubtedly, this song is more Kayokyoku than New Music, but the reason why the atmosphere changes so much between Hitomi Ishikawa and Yuming… that is why I selected this song.

The pride that “I won’t make the first move myself” and the reckless action of “waiting on the way home.” The essence of romance, and of the creature known as a human, is hidden within this contradiction. I placed it at No. 14 out of respect for her authorship, which wrapped that contradiction in a beautiful melody and tailored it into a standard that does not fade even after decades.