Sukiyaki with a Taste of Honey... No, it's not about Japanese food!

[luisam]

The Sukiyaki is a Japanese dish that is prepared and served in the Japanese hot pot style. It consists of meat (usually thinly sliced beef) which is slowly cooked or simmered at the table, alongside vegetables and other ingredients, in a shallow iron pot in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and mirin. The ingredients are usually dipped in a small bowl of raw, beaten eggs after being cooked in the pot, and then eaten.

Now, on the other hand, the biggest international hit, by a Japanese singer, of all-time was Sukiyaki.  The title of this song may bring back memories of this great sixties hit, or it may just remind you of dinner at a Japanese restaurant.  

The song has nothing to do with Sukiyaki, the Japanese dish, and the word isn't contained in the song at all.  The translators just gave it a name Americans could remember!  

The song, by Kyu Sakamoto, tells in Japanese a sad story about a guy who walks down the street with his head held back so the tears don't roll down his face. But originally it was not intended to be a "love song". Author Rokusuke Ei wrote this song while coming back from a protest against the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan and feeling dejected about the failure of the protest movement! The lyrics were rendered purposefully generic so that they might refer to any lost love.  If you don't remember it by its storyline, maybe it's because you don't understand Japanese.

It peaked at number 2 on 77 WABC, New York in July of 1963. The song reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts in the United States in 1963, one of the few non-Indo-European languages' songs to have done so.

It is one of the best-selling singles of all time, having sold over 13 million copies worldwide. The original Kyu Sakamoto recording also went to number eighteen on the R&B chart. In addition, the single spent five weeks at number one on the Middle of the Road charts. The recording was originally released in Japan by Toshiba in 1961. It 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.

Well-known English-language cover versions with altogether different lyrics include "My First Lonely Night" by Jewel Akens in 1966 and "Sukiyaki" by A Taste of Honey in 1980 which reached number 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and it also went to number one on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and Soul chart. It is the group's single of greatest U.S. chart longevity at 24 weeks, surpassing their earlier hit, "Boogie Oogie Oogie" by one week. The song has also been recorded in other languages.

 

 

 

And this is "A Taste of Honey"s' version

 

 

[stylemessiah]

Still one of the most beautiful things you'll ever hear after all these years.

[straycat19]

My friends and I sang along with this song in Japanese when we were in junior high school.  Took forever to learn the correct pronunciations.  My father didn't appreciate us singing it though since he was a Marine veteran of the Pacific War and landed in Japan with the Marine Forces at the end of the war.

[debebee]

Remade and made popular in the 90s by Boyz2Men