The 1961 ballad that broke through to the world

A 1961 Japanese ballad that defied linguistic barriers to top American charts is the subject of a new drama opening the Tokyo International Film Festival. The film, titled Sukiyaki, examines the commercial and cultural trajectory of a song that became a global phenomenon while its creator perished in a plane crash decades later.

Director Takahisa Zeze’s film focuses on the collaboration between composer Hachidai Nakamura and lyricist Rokusuke Ei. The story depicts how they wrote the track for singer Kyu Sakamoto, a pairing that produced a melody blending traditional Japanese scales with jazz chords and US pop influences. The film releases in Japan on Christmas Day.

The song, originally titled Ue o Muite Aruko, was inspired by the failure of the Anpo protests to prevent a security treaty that kept American military forces in Japan. Ei’s lyrics described looking upward to keep tears from falling. Sakamoto performed the piece unrehearsed at a 1961 recital, altering the rhythm and key in a way that gave the recording its distinctive character.

British musician Louis Benjamin discovered the track during a 1962 visit to Japan. He released an instrumental version under the title Sukiyaki, which entered the British top ten in February 1963. The name reportedly came from the hotpot dish Benjamin ate in Tokyo or was chosen because Ball knew few Japanese words.

Capitol Records bet on the original Japanese recording for the US market in May 1963. The single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June and held that position for three weeks. It remained the first song from Asia to achieve that milestone until BTS’s Dynamite reached the same rank in 2020.

The single sold more than 13 million copies worldwide, topping charts from Australia to Norway. Toshiba reissued the track in Japan with the English title in katakana and a cover legend reading global hit. The success coincided with double-digit economic growth and the rise of Japanese brands like Sony and Toyota, offering a source of national pride after wartime defeat.

The song’s influence extended into Western music in the 1980s. Janice-Marie Johnson of the group A Taste of Honey recorded a version in 1981 after Ei provided an English translation. That track reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100. Johnson’s lyrics later appeared in a 1985 hip hop song by Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick.

Sakamoto died in August 1985 when Japan Air Lines flight 123 crashed into a mountainside shortly after takeoff from Tokyo. The accident killed 520 of the 524 people on board, making it the deadliest single-aircraft disaster in history. The song is played at the annual memorial service for the victims.

The track has been used in various public contexts since then, including a 2011 television commercial featuring 71 celebrities and the 2021 closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. The new film reunites the onscreen portrayals of the trio that Sakamoto had wanted to bring together before his death.