Years later, after A Taste of Honey had scored their 1978 number-one hit " Boogie Oogie Oogie", Johnson heard the Linda Ronstadt hit remake of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' " Ooo Baby Baby" on her car radio causing Johnson to realize that remaking a 1960s hit could be a good career move for A Taste of Honey, with Johnson's obvious choice for the remake being her beloved "Sukiyaki". Constantly playing the single, Johnson phonetically learned its lyrics and taught them to her sister, with the pair participating in neighborhood talent shows singing "Sukiyaki" while performing their approximation of an Oriental dance number. Janice-Marie Johnson (English lyrics – uncredited)Ī Taste of Honey vocalist Janice-Marie Johnson would recall how at age nine she had heard Kyu Sakamoto's "Sukiyaki" on the radio in the summer of 1963 and said: "Mom! Buy me this record!", as despite not understanding the lyrics she was deeply moved by the song.In the summer of 2021, the song was performed during the closing ceremony of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo (which had been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic).Ĭovers and variations (as "Sukiyaki") A Taste of Honey version "Sukiyaki" The stamp is listed in the Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue as Japan number 2666 with a face value of 50 yen. On March 16, 1999, Japan Post issued a stamp that commemorated the song. West Germany ( Official German Charts) Īn instrumental version of the song was played by NASA over the radio for the Gemini VII astronauts as mood music, thereby becoming one of the first pieces of music sent to humans in space. Internationally, the song is one of the best-selling singles of all time, having sold over 13 million copies worldwide. That was the last song by an artist from Japan to reach the US pop chart for 16 years, until the female duo Pink Lady had a top-40 hit in 1979 with its English-language song " Kiss in the Dark". Sakamoto's follow-up to "Sukiyaki", "China Nights (Shina no Yoru)", charted in 1963 at number 58. "Sukiyaki" also peaked at number eighteen on the Billboard R&B chart, and spent five weeks at number one on the Middle of the Road chart. It was the only single by an Asian artist to top the Hot 100 until the 2020 release of " Dynamite" by the South Korean band BTS. In the US, "Sukiyaki" topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963, one of the few non-English songs to have done so, and the first in a non- European language. In Japan, "Ue o Muite Arukō" topped the Popular Music Selling Record chart in the Japanese magazine Music Life for three months, and was ranked as the number one song of 1961 in Japan. The song has also been recorded in other languages. Well-known English-language cover versions with altogether different lyrics often go by the alternative name or something completely different, including "My First Lonely Night" by Jewel Akens in 1966, and "Sukiyaki" by A Taste of Honey in 1980 (see below). A Newsweek columnist compared this re-titling to issuing " Moon River" in Japan under the title "Beef Stew". The word sukiyaki does not appear in the song's lyrics, nor does it have any connection to them it was used only because it was short, catchy, recognizably Japanese, and more familiar to English speakers. In Anglophone countries, the song is best known under the alternative title " Sukiyaki", the name of a Japanese hot-pot dish with cooked beef. The English-language lyrics of the version recorded by A Taste of Honey are not a translation of the original Japanese lyrics, but instead a completely different set of lyrics arranged to the same basic melody. However, the lyrics were purposefully generic so that they might refer to any lost love. Ei wrote the lyrics while walking home from participating in the 1960 Anpo protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, expressing his frustration and dejection at the failed efforts to stop the treaty. The lyrics tell the story of a man who looks up and whistles while he is walking so that his tears will not fall, with the verses describing his memories and feelings. " Ue o Muite Arukō" ( pronounced ) was written by lyricist Rokusuke Ei and composer Hachidai Nakamura. 6 Covers and variations (as "Sukiyaki").
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