I love this song.
VIDEO
My parents used to play this all the time on reel-to-reel when I was small. If I close my eyes while listening, I'm wearing my red corduroys and cowboy boots, and I can see the muted 70s autumn colors of my childhood. Dark wood-paneling. Green formica table, brick-red linoleum, morning sun streaming white through the catalpa trees and illuminating the dust in the air and creating warm patches on the carpet. The carpet that makes me think of Mama's spaghetti sauce, flecked with red and brown and yellow. Screen door creaking. The crickle-crackle-pop of the vinyl transfer to tape, strangely thrilling as it punctuates the heavy bass coming out of enormous Sony speakers that are so hard to dust because of their elaborate carved wood faces. A koto on the wall. The smell of sawdust and 3 in 1 oil . The taste of green popsicles.
The person who uploaded it even included the lyrics. I've never been able to make out all of the lyrics, so now I can finally attempt to sing along. I read that the first time the songwriter, Rokusuke Ei, heard Kyu Sakamoto sing this song, he was appalled because it didn't sound like the Japanese language. Apparently, Sakamoto chose this style because he wanted to sing the song like Elvis!
I also love this little tidbit from Wikipedia:
The title, sukiyaki (which is a Japanese steamboat dish), has nothing to do with the lyrics or the meaning of the song; the word served the purpose only because it was short, catchy, recognizably Japanese, and more familiar to most English speakers (very few of whom could understand the Japanese lyrics anyway). A Newsweek columnist noted that the re-titling was like issuing "Moon River" in Japan under the title "Beef Stew."
Ah, the pre-culturally sensitive American days of yore!
Sukiyaki
I'll look up while I'm walking
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