Waga Kokoro no Maria
Watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Along Complex some time ago I fell in love with the theme song, Inner Universe by Yoko Kanno and Origa. I was familiar with Yoko Kanno from her work on Macross Plus among others and really enjoyed her work, but Origa’s voice was simply enchanting.
At some point thereafter I managed to score The Best of Origa. I’m still a little bitter that it costs over 40 bux to get any of her CDs, but that’s what you get for listening to anything thats different. Most of my David Sylvian collection cost an arm and a leg for much the same reason and that’s only coming from England. Anywho, the album is quite fantastic and Origa is an incredible singer. One of the songs bothers me, though, since I swear I’ve heard it somewhere before, but I can’t place it at all.
Now a little background on Origa. She’s Russian but became popular in Japan, so her albums are published through a Japanese company (at least as far as I can tell). Like any good vocalist she sings in several languages: Russian, Japanese, English, and even a little touch of Greek (at least that’s what aeria gloris is if the memory serves (which, by the way, means “heavenly glory”) from Inner Universe). The song listed as Waga Kokoro no Maria is thankfully sung in English, and reminds me of something, but I don’t know what. Here’s the lyrics:
Maria, I call your name in to the air every moment.
You’ll never know how much I wanted just one tender touch.
Maria, you ask me why, but I don’t know why I’m in love with you.
Something inside your heart called out to my loneliness.
I can’t go on without you, but I know you have to go.
Maria, I call your name in to the air.
Maria, I know I can’t see you again no matter what I do.
Maria, I call your name in to the air every moment.
You’ll never know how much I wanted just one tender touch.
Maria.
As you can see it appeals to my - uh - sentimental side. The thing that’s driving me craz, as I said, is I freaking swear I’ve heard it in something else, but I don’t know what. Either that or I’m experiencing some sort of ELIZA effect from the lyrics. I’m not sure which. 
Perhaps the best part of the song for me is her accent in singing Englinsh. It seems to me that she learned English through someone that natively speaks Japanese, or made her English sound like it would as though spoken by a native Japanese speaker. Her R’s are very soft, but not quite the non-R sound you’ll get from good Japanese singers singing English, but that makes sense since Russian has the same type of R sound (well…sort of), but the thing that really tips me off is first how she pronounces Maria as though it were three flat Japanese syllables enunciated by pitch, not stress, and second how she pronounces matter as though it was “mata”. All said it sounds very nice.
Contrast it with Celine Dion’s R’s. She sounds like a hungry basset hound when she hits one of those. Anywho, nice song, great singer. And if ANYONE knows where the fuck this song came from I’d greatly appreciate hearing about it.