"Love Theme from Shogun (Mariko's Theme)" by Meco

Song#:  0364
Date:  10/11/1980
Debut:  81
Peak:  70
Weeks:  4
Genre:  Pop, Instrumental, Soundtrack



Pop Bits:  This one-off single has Meco taking a theme from Maurice Jarre's score to the TV mini-series "Shogun" and creating a whole new pop song in his unique style. Although mainly known for his disco takes on sci-fi films like "Star Wars" and "Close Encounters," Meco did his own takes on other films and even had a whole album based on "The Wizard of Oz." But this particular song, with a b-side of "Main Theme from Shogun," was only released as a single and does not seem to appear on any of his album or compilations.

ReduxReview:  In this project thus far, I've had pretty good luck locating all the songs. In a couple of cases I could only post the music for a snippet of a song, but I usually end up hearing the full song somewhere. When I saw Meco, I thought it would be no problem hearing this song....wrong! I searched and searched and could not find even a brief snippet of the song anywhere. It ends up this was only put out on a 45 and it has never made its way onto any album or CD anywhere. Really odd for an artist who was popular at the time. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but then I decided I'd look up the vinyl. I happened to find a person selling one for cheap, so I bought it. I'm kind of glad I did. Based on his other singles, I thought this would be some discofied version of a theme song and I planned on just giving it a low rating. However, when I played it, I was quite surprised. It is a pretty good tune and not the typical Meco-dance arrangement. I decided to transfer the 45 to a video and I posted it on YouTube, which is above. While it is nothing awesome, I think it is a good song and I'm glad I researched further and got the vinyl.

ReduxRating:  6/10

Trivia:  In addition to his own work, Meco was a producer and worked with many artists in the 70s and 80s. In 1982, he helped to introduce a frizzy-haired soprano sax player to the world when he produced the debut album of Kenny G.

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