Morning Coffee

Morning Coffee
Original 8cm Release
12cm Re-release
Single by Morning Musumefrom the album First Time
Native title	モーニングコーヒー
Released	January 28, 1998 March 2, 2005 (Re-release)
Genre	J-Pop
Format	CD Single, digital download
Length	13:28 (Original) 17:58 (Re-release)
Label	One Up Music zetima (Re-release)
Producer	Tsunku
Morning Musume Singles Chronology
Previous	Ai no Tane Demo Single (1997)
Next	Summer Night Town 2nd Single (1998)

Morning Coffee (モーニングコーヒー) is Morning Musume's debut single. It was released January 28, 1998 as an 8cm CD. It sold a total of 200,790 copies.

It was re-released in 2004 as part of the Morning Musume Early Single Box in 2004, a limited edition box set containing Morning Musume's first eight singles reissued on 12cm CDs. In 2005, the singles were released individually under the zetima label, and first press editions came with a photo card.

Tracklist

Morning Musume - Morning Coffee (MV)

Original Edition

1. Morning Coffee
2. Ai no Tane (愛の種; Seeds of Love)
3. Morning Coffee (Instrumental)

Re-release Edition

1. Morning Coffee
2. Ai no Tane
3. Morning Coffee (Instrumental)
4. Morning Coffee (Unreleased "B♭" Version)

Featured Members

1st generation Morning Musume 20 years after the release, January 28, 2018

• Nakazawa Yuko
• Ishiguro Aya
• Iida Kaori
• Abe Natsumi
• Fukuda Asuka

Single Information

Morning Coffee

• Lyrics & Composition: Tsunku
• Arrangement and Programming: Sakurai Tetsutaro
• 12-string Guitar and Acoustic Guitar: Takahashi Yuichi
• Electric Guitar: Tsuchiya Kiyoshi
• Acoustic Piano and Keyboards: Kono Shin
• Dance Choreographer: Natsu Mayumi

TV Performances

• [1998.02.24] Utaban
• [1998.02.xx] Music Station
• [1998.02.xx] Hey! Hey! Hey!
• [1999.01.03] ASAYAN
• [2000.10.08] Hello! Morning Episode 027 (Last Phrase Karaoke)
• [2014.04.xx] Bokura no Ongaku
• [2015.02.25] SKY PerfecTV! MUSIC FESTIVAL

Concert Performances

Morning Coffee

• Hello! FIRST LIVE AT SHIBUYA KOHKAIDO
• Hello! Project Happy New Year '99
• Morning Musume '99 Memory Seishun no Hikari Tour
• Hello! Project '99
• Hello! Project Happy New Year 2000
• Morning Musume Live Hatsu no Budokan ~Dancing Love Site 2000 Haru~
• Live Revolution 21 Haru ~Osaka Jou Hall Saishuu Bi~
• Morning Musume CONCERT TOUR 2003 15nin de NON STOP!
• Morning Musume Sakura Gumi Hatsu Kouen ~Sakura Saku~ - Morning Musume Sakura Gumi
• Hello! Project 2005 Winter All-Stars Dairanbu ~A HAPPY NEW POWER! Iida Kaori Sotsugyou Special~ - Nakazawa Yuko, Iida Kaori, Yasuda Kei, Inaba Atsuko, Ayaka, Saito Hitomi, Kimura Asami, Saito Miuna, Umeda Erika, Sugaya Risako
• Morning Musume Tanjou 10nen Kinentai Concert Tour 2007 Natsu ~Thank You My Dearest~
• Morning Musume Concert Tour 2008 Haru ~Single Daizenshuu!!~
• Hello! Project 2009 Winter Elder Club Kouen ~Thank you for your LOVE!~ - Nakazawa Yuko, Iida Kaori, Abe Natsumi, Yasuda Kei, Yaguchi Mari
• Hello! Project 2009 Winter Kettei! Hello☆Pro Award '09 ~Elder Club Sotsugyou Kinen Special~
• Dream Morning Musume Special LIVE 2012 Nippon Budokan ~Dai Isshou Shuumaku "Yuusha Tachi, Shuugou Seyo"~ - Dream Morning Musume
• Hello! Project COUNTDOWN PARTY 2013 ~GOOD BYE & HELLO!~ - Nakazawa Yuko, Iida Kaori, Abe Natsumi, Ishiguro Aya
• Morning Musume '17 Concert Tour Haru ~THE INSPIRATION!~
• Morning Musume '17 Live Concert in Hong Kong
• Hello! Project Kenshuusei Happyoukai 2017 12gatsu ~Conti→New!~ - Horie Kizuki, Maeda Kokoro, Noguchi Kurumi, Kodama Sakiko, Shimakura Rika / Inoue Hikaru, Yonemura Kirara, Yamazaki Yuhane, Eguchi Saya, Okamura Minami
• Hello! Project 20th Anniversary!! Hello! Project Hallo! Fes 2018 - Country Girls
• Hello! Project 20th Anniversary!! Morning Musume '19 Dinner Show "Happy Night"

Oricon Chart Positions

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Week Rank	Sales
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	6	95,060
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	14	33,680
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	22	29,030
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	29	16,500
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	42	9,670
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	53	7,560
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	64	5,470
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	78	3,820

Total reported sales: 200,790

Cover Versions

• Country Musume released a re-arranged rap version of Morning Coffe (called Morning Gyuunyuu). It can be found as the B-side to their debut single.
• In 2002, a re-arranged and re-recorded version of this song was featured as the B-side for Morning Musume’s 14th single, "Souda! We're ALIVE". The only members left of the original five at this time were Iida Kaori and Abe Natsumi.
• An instrumental cover was recorded by Shakatak for the album Cover Morning Musume! ~Various Artist Covers "MORNING MUSUME"!~.
• Ice Creamusume recorded a Chinese version of the song on their debut album 1st Zuì Bàng!. They also recorded a Japanese version for same album.
• In September 2010, the unit was Afternoon Musume released a digital single titled "Gouhoubi no Afternoon Coffee", which was a slower enka stylized version.
• Dream Morning Musume recorded a "2011 Dreamusu. Ver." on their album Dorimusu ①.
• Morning Musume '17 recorded a remake titled "Morning Misoshiru" to promote a Marukome miso soup product of the same name.
• Morning Musume 20th recorded a remake titled "Morning Coffee (20th Anniversary Ver.)" in 2018.

Trivia

• Early on, Tsunku had decided that Iida Kaori was going to be be the lead vocalist. Before the recording on the second day, Tsunku changed the lead vocals to Abe Natsumi.
• For their major debut single, three songs were recorded: "Morning Coffee", "Usotsuki Anta" and "Dou ni ka Shite Douyoubi". Demos of the songs were played on ASAYAN while the girls were interviewed. The hosts of the show started laughing listening to "Dou ni Kashite Douyoubi", because they thought parts of the lyrics were funny ("Douyoubi nante, kirairai, terebi datte, no no"). People could phone in and vote for the song that would be their debut single, and on December 28, 1997, "Morning Coffee" was chosen as their debut single.
  • "Dou ni ka Shite Doyoubi" and "Usotsuki Anta", re-recorded with the 2nd generation members, would eventually be released in Morning Musume's first album First Time.
• 1st generation member Nakazawa Yuko commented on the single for a YouTube video series counting up to Morning Musume's 50th single.
• This was Morning Musume's lowest selling official single until "Furusato".
• This is the only Morning Musume single that was under the One Up Music label in its original release.
• The 4th track on the re-release is a buried treasure that has never been released to the public. This was an original version completed on December 22 1997, but Tsunku and the staff felt the sound to be a little weak. In order to create a more "sellable" sound, they decided to drop the key by a half and played the pre-programmed rhythm parts from sequence software instead of using the actual band. The newer version was recorded on December 30 and it became the final version for the debut single. In comparison, the vocal parts for the original version are inexperienced yet fresh, and somewhat more humble, for the members were still dreaming of becoming the top of the pop idol groups.
• With this single, Morning Musume has the fifth highest selling debut single in all of Hello! Project, excluding shuffle units.

Interviews

1998 Interview with the Morning Musume Members

Interviewer: What was difficult or challenging?

Fukuda: It was difficult to express the song’s mood accurately.

Yasuda: The rapidly spoken part at the very end was difficult. I had such a hard time with it.

Nakazawa: For me, it was the chorus part of ‘Yes’. My harmony was lower but my voice was apparently way too low. I remember Tsunku was laughing at me.

2010 Interview with Tsunku

Interviewer: January 1998, Morning Musume released "Morning Coffee". At that point, did you have a clear vision of the unit?

Tsunku: Not at all. I was testing to see how many households I could reach. I didn’t know whether the unit could be in top 10 artists. So "Morning Coffee" was good for testing the market. But once I saw the unit’s popularity, I felt like the unit possessed a huge risk to be perceived as artificial idol group, so I immediately changed my game plan. I wanted to keep the unit as multi-dimensional, or the unit was going to follow the typical fate of the artificial units, that’s photogenic without substance. Back when we were promoting "Ai no Tane", things were in much smaller scale, with warm supports, just like young athletes being supported by the family members. The warm atmosphere began to cool down around the release date, and I didn’t like that at all. We came up with the idea of adding more members, and changing the image of the unit at the same time. I think that’s when I began seeing the clear vision of the unit.

Up until the release of "Morning Coffee", general public was interested in the unit for one reason: The members were, in short, a bunch of losers (of the audition), and they were simply curious to see how long it could survive. The unit landed 6th place on the first week of the pop chart, and that was great, but I didn’t think about what was to follow. I wasn’t sure whether general public’s curiosity would wear off completely. That was the biggest realization at that time, and I was looking for another boost to bring back their curiosity.

Also, I felt the members of the unit were beginning to feel too comfortable in their positions. Understandably, they had enough fans, they landed 6th place, they were surrounded by people at every meet-and-greet sessions. So I could see them starting to be less humble than they used to be. And I thought I had to make some changes. [Note: Tsunku ended up adding three more members and giving Nakazawa a solo career.]

External Links

• Discography: Hello! Project (8 cm), Hello! Project (12 cm), UP-FRONT WORKS (8 cm), UP-FRONT WORKS (12 cm), Tsunku.net
• Wikipedia: Japanese, English
• Lyrics: Morning Coffee, Ai no Tane