Sukiyaki Tops The Charts

It was on this date in 1963 that Kyu Sakamoto achieved a feat that had never been done before---or since.

A song sung completely in Japanese made it to the top spot on the American singles chart. The song was “Sukiyaki”. Originally entitled (by loose translation) “I Look Up When I Walk”, it was renamed—apparently for no particular reason—“Sukiyaki”, the Japanese food dish that features beef or chicken and shirataki noodles and shiitake mushrooms.

Alrighty then.

Maybe it’s because those in the music business felt that an all-Japanese lyric song should have a Japanese title—one that Americans were familiar with. “Bonzai”,“kamikaze” and “samurai” conjured up images of World War II, less then twenty years over at the time, so it’s likely they probably didn’t even make the first cut. “Karate” was too violent as well. “Chop Suey” didn’t sound romantic enough, so…hey! “Sukiyaki” it is!

Kyu Sakamoto was a popular singer in Japan—and the domestic release of the song in his home country garnered a huge hit. Here’s where it gets interesting. A British music executive by the name of Louis Benjamin, who heard it while traveling in Japan in 1961-decided to create an instrumental version, using a popular English jazz group, Kenny Bell And His Jazzmen.

As that instrumental was climbing the charts in the U.S., a disc jockey decided to spin the original Japanese version.

Kaboom!

Requests flooded in and Capitol Records released the song under the title we all know now. Newsweek magazine poked fun at the title, likening it to releasing “Moon River” in Japan under the name “Beef Stew”.

Here’s a vintage video of the song—as performed on a TV show in 1963 by the Sakamoto:




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtXQ31F1A-k

Since then, a number of cover versions have been released, most notable by A Taste Of Honey in 1981—which reached #3 on the pop chart and another by a group called 4PM, which climbed to #8 in 1995.

After all these years, it still sounds good—and although we have no IDEA what he’s saying (he could be , for all we know, singing the praises of foot powder), it still sounds romantic.

Something you cannot say about Chop Suey.


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