It's been revealed that singer-songwriter Takahashi Yu will be releasing his new single, "Sotsugyou (Graduation)", on January 18th!

The title track was created after Takahashi made a live appearance on TOKYO FM's "SCHOOL OF LOCK!" back in April. Since it was just a month after the Tohoku Earthquake, he sent out a message to the listeners saying, "I want everyone to throw their 'true feelings' at me."�Then, the program's personalities Principal Toyama and Vice-principal Yashiro made a request saying, "I want you to take everyone's feelings home and turn it into a song."

So Takahashi took home every single mail item and faxes, he then proceeded to go through them one-by-one. After the song was completed, it was presented on the program, and received a positive response from the listeners. At that time, the song was untitled; however, Takahashi later re-wrote a part of the lyrics and named it "Sotsugyou".

Takahashi announced the release of this single after performing it on the first day of his nationwide tour, "Takahashi Yu 2011 Aki no Zenkoku Tour ~Dareka no Tame ni Utau Yu~", which was held on November 6th at Yokohama BLITZ. While speaking to everyone in the audience, he commented, "Even though you may be in the darkness, I want you to move towards the light little-by-little in order to graduate from sadness someday. I put those kind of thoughts into it."

Other than "Sotsugyou", the single will include a currently untitled coupling song. As a bonus track, the regular edition will come with an unreleased track, and the limited edition will come with a live recording. Additionally, the limited edition will come with a DVD containing performances from "Gekkan Takahashi Yu STREAM Shoutou Live 'Dare mo Inai Basho'", which was held on October 26th via UStream.

Source: natalie