Kyu Sakamoto: Sukiyaki (1963)

 |   |  1 min read

Kyu Sakamoto: Sukiyaki (1963)
Kyu Sakamoto: Sukiyaki (1963)

It wasn't really the name of the song that Sakamoto recorded, but that hardly mattered. When this catchy piece of MOR pop from Japan made it to the West it enjoyed enormous success.

Sakamoto, who was 22, was the first and last Japanese artist to top the Billboard charts. It was also his first and last international success.

Back home of course he wasn't a one-hit wonder, he was a national hero and behaved accordingly. He lived a modest life but later was among the 520 killed when Japan Airlines' Flight 123 crashed in 1985.

But his song lives on.

A couple of years ago a Japanese friend had her parents over to New Zealand and they couldn't speak a word of English. We went out to dinner one night and her mother and I sang Sukiyaki to the great delight of the table. Music was the only language we had, and potent, cheap pop at that.

Sukiyaki was never the original title but one that Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen dropped on it when they covered it in '62. Sukiyaki is a Japanese steamboat meal (Kenny thought people would remember that name better) but the lyrics are about a man who has lost his lover and walks looking upwards, whistling, so the tears won't fall. But when the Sakamoto version was released in the West the record company kept the substitute title.

The appeal of the song is simple: it boasts a terrific and memorable melody, has wood blocks and a great string arrangement, and in Sakamoto's version there is that mysterious quality because you don't know what the lyrics are, so you can just sing them phoenetically. Sort of like singing a Keith Richards/Stones song where the lyrics are obscure so you make up your own.

And of course it has whistling.

Simple, clean, easy to sing and not a little charming. It has had a few cover versions (one by Selena) but there is only one Sukiyaki and it is by Kyu Sakamoto.

And interestingly enough the song it knocked off the top of the US charts was . . . It's My Party by Lesley Gore. Also a star From the Vaults.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   From the Vaults articles index

Robin Zander: Fly Me to the Moon (2011)

Robin Zander: Fly Me to the Moon (2011)

On the basis of recent evidence Robin Zander -- singer with the smarter-than-thou Cheap Trick -- has really lost it. Lost his cheekbones, his slim frame and, worst of all because those are... > Read more

Bruce Springsteen: Born in the USA demo (1982)

Bruce Springsteen: Born in the USA demo (1982)

The recent box set The Ties That Bind; The River Collection showed how Bruce Springsteen was so prolific in the period when he was writing what became the double album The River. Once all those... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: The Mountain Goats, Heretic Pride (4AD)

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: The Mountain Goats, Heretic Pride (4AD)

Co-produced by John Vanderslice, the typically opaque lyrics by John Darnielle are given space and clarity so as to bewilder and bemuse you by turns. Not many people write songs with titles like... > Read more

PACIFIC MUSIC AWARDS FINALISTS (2025): The sounds of our South Pacific

PACIFIC MUSIC AWARDS FINALISTS (2025): The sounds of our South Pacific

The finalists for the 2025 Pacific Music Awards were announced last week at the Mangere Arts Centre in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. This year’s celebration of Pacific music marks the 21st... > Read more