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No. 9 December–January 2011/2012 Ue wo Muite Arukou (Sukiyaki) Sato Go e wo Muite Arukou (Looking Up As I Walk) was a big hit for the Japanese singer Sakamoto Kyu (1941–1985). The lyrics by Rokusuke Ei were set to music by Nakamura Hachidai. As Sukiyaki , the song made it big in the United States, ranked No. 1 by Billboard magazine for the week ending June 15, 1963, and entering the Top 10 in the annual rankings for the same year. Here, we get to the bottom of the background and creation of a work that became a pioneer of Japanese content export, as it were. Dave Dexter, Jr. It was Kuwashima Akira, currently living in Camarillo in the suburbs of Los Angeles, who told me about Dave Dexter, Jr., the A&R man for Capitol, one of the Big Four record labels. A&R is the abbreviation of Artist and Repertoire, and it is a job that only exists in the music industry. The role of this profession is to connect artists, i.e., singers and musicians, with the repertoire, i.e., the tunes. U SATO Go

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Page 1: Ue wo Muite Arukou (Sukiyaki) - Discuss Japan-Japan ... wo Muite Arukou.pdf · No. 9 December–January 2011/2012 Ue wo Muite Arukou (Sukiyaki) Sato Go e wo Muite Arukou (Looking

No. 9 December–January 2011/2012

Ue wo Muite Arukou (Sukiyaki)

Sato Go

e wo Muite Arukou (Looking Up As I Walk) was a big hit for

the Japanese singer Sakamoto Kyu (1941–1985). The lyrics by

Rokusuke Ei were set to music by Nakamura Hachidai . As

Sukiyaki , the song made it big in the United States, ranked No.

1 by Billboard magazine for the week ending June 15, 1963, and entering the

Top 10 in the annual rankings for the same year. Here, we get to the bottom of

the background and creation of a work that became a pioneer of Japanese

content export , as i t were.

Dave Dexter, Jr.

I t was Kuwashima Akira, currently l iving in

Camaril lo in the suburbs of Los Angeles,

who told me about Dave Dexter, Jr. , the

A&R man for Capitol, one of the Big Four

record labels.

A&R is the abbreviation of Artist and

Repertoire, and i t is a job that only exists in

the music industry. The role of this

profession is to connect art ists, i .e. , s ingers

and musicians, with the repertoire, i .e. , the

tunes.

U

SATO Go

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Heading for California in 1943, Dave Dexter, Jr. had a hand in the fledgling

Capitol Records. Making use of his outstanding ear for music, keen intel lect ,

and writ ing abil i ty, he started his career working in PR, but he soon moved to

A&R where he had tremendous success.

In his autobiography, Playback , Dave Dexter, Jr. maps out the development

of the music industry in the United States and the history of Capitol Records

in a series of anecdotes. At the start of Chapter 18, he tel ls the story of the

creation of Sukiyaki . This is where i t becomes clear that the story of how the

single was released by Capitol is mostly down to the independent judgment of

Dave Dexter, Jr. Reading the passage several t imes, I keenly fel t the bri l l iant

sense, intuit ion and abili ty to act of a truly outstanding music man.

The year 1963 was a t ime in American pop when there was a direct l ink

between cute female vocals and hit tunes. I have no doubt that Dave Dexter,

Jr.’s keen antennae went up when he heard about a phone call from a DJ in

Fresno talking about the posit ive response by Americans to a record by a cute

female foreign vocalist . But the trif l ing interest changed into great interest ,

when he realized that the vocalist was not female, but a young man. You can

clearly read the moment when he had a change of heart in the sentence,

“Seeing the answer, I stopped what I was doing.”

As he himself writes, the more he thought calmly about i t , the more he

concluded, “I didn’t remotely think that a vocalist singing in a foreign

language could be a hit .” Presumably this is precisely why he immediately

made his move when he felt something that went beyond common sense,

reasoning and reali ty. Before the insight was suppressed by reason, he gave i t

shape by making a master.

The Age of American Pop

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Sukiyaki was a radio release from Capitol , just before the Brit ish Invasion

assailed American shores, and part of a stream of music history that included

the birth of rock & roll and the heights of American pop. When the cute

falsetto of Sakamoto Kyu streamed out from the radio, requests started to

come in to radio stations al l over the United States.

This is how the song became independent of Dave Dexter, Jr. and when the

street release of Sukiyaki came in May, i t started i ts unaided ascent to the top

of the hit charts.

The lyrics said “nakinagara aruku” (crying while I walk), but the song far

from walked; i t dashed up the charts in a rapid ascent, reaching the top spot on

June 15. ( * 1 )

Ue wo Muite Arukou sung by a nineteen-year-old Japanese youth had

performed a miracle on the American hit charts . I t had defied the handicap of

not singing in English to reach No. 1 on the nationwide charts. I t was also an

extraordinary achievement as three and a half years had passed since the

original song was released in Japan.

That is not al l , Sukiyaki entered the charts in one country after another, and

in the twinkling of an eye, i t overcame the language barrier to spread to people

worldwide.

This was the f irst instance of approval of Japanese culture around the world

after the Second World War. At a t ime when the Japan brand only had a

negative image, this was quite an event. Before Sony and Panasonic, Honda

and Toyota, pop music created in Japan had a major success on the global

market . This marked the f irst t ime that postwar Japan was on a par with the

rest of the world.

*1 The top spot was surrendered by Leslie Gore and It’s My Party and I’l l

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Cry If I Want To, the first No. 1 hit single produced by Quincy Jones.

Sukiyaki and the Beatles

The Ears and Sensibilities of Two Producers

Twentieth-century America reigned supreme over the entertainment industry.

Above all , after the Second World War, the general public worldwide yearned

for American culture because of the affluent l ifestyle. For fi lm entertainment,

Hollywood was the apex, for plays, i t was the Broadway musicals of New York,

and for music, the hit charts of Bil lboard and Cashbox became indicators of

what was popular with young people.

Even in Japan, which had been burnt and left in ruins by air raids, American

culture came pouring in through films, radio, and then television as the

recovery got underway.

The postwar jazz boom, the rockabilly boom and the “cover pops” boom,

which were epoch-making events in Japan’s music history, happened because

they were rooted in the fervent wish of many young Japanese people of that

t ime to somehow be able to integrate with the culture of young people in

America.

For people working in some capacity in the entertainment industry, success

in America was the dream inside a dream. I t was a never-ending distant dream.

The huge American market was attractive, but at the same t ime, there were

also powerful barriers blocking the way.

In Japan, Toshiba (at the t ime, Tokyo Shibaura Electr ic Co. , Ltd.), which had

a technical cooperation agreement with EMI in Britain, buil t a factory for

manufacturing records in 1955, and sold the first records in July. They

included selections of classical music and chansons from EMI. ( * 2 )

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In the same year, Capitol, which had achieved remarkable growth in America,

became a subsidiary of EMI in Britain by sell ing them 75% of i ts shares. This

was the opportunity to establish a new department at Capitol for selecting

works that might be successful on the American market from the catalogs of

the international record companies that collaborated with EMI.

Dave Dexter, Jr. was singled out to take charge of the International A&R

Department. An excellent A&R man, who also wielded the pen as a scholarly

cri t ic, Dave Dexter, Jr. was considered suitable for his broad knowledge and

journalist ic sensibil i t ies.

For the recording companies, producers and art ists affi l iated with EMI, the

ear and sensibil i ty of Dave Dexter, Jr. , the international A&R man, was the

barrier at Capitol that s tood in the way of the dream of moving into the

American market .

Sukiyaki in Britain

According to the Complete Book of the Brit ish Charts (Omnibus Press), which

l ists all the singles and albums sold in Britain from 1951 to 1999, an

instrumental version of Sukiyaki arranged in the Dixieland jazz style by Kenny

Ball and His Jazzmen reached No. 10 on the Brit ish charts on January 19,

1963.

I t is not possible to specify the release date, but singles by Kenny Ball & His

Jazzmen had regularly charted in 1962, on February 17, May 19, and August

25. Their previous release, The Pay-Off (A Moi de Payer) recorded i ts highest

ranking at No. 23 on October 20. Consequently, a release date in the second

half of December 1962, or in the f irst ten days of January 1963, is probably a

reasonable guess.

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In an interview with a weekly magazine, Sakamoto Kyu talked about how Ue

wo Muite Arukou , a song in Japanese, came to be released overseas, and this is

how I found out that he had made a tour of Europe from August 19 to

September 2 to promote the song.

I t al l s tarted with a request from EMI in Britain, partners of Toshiba Records,

to send them a recording of Ue wo Muite Arukou by Sakamoto Kyu. Toshiba

sent the record immediately and the response from EMI was “Wonderful . Both

the song and the singer are absolutely wonderful . The melody is particularly

suited to European tastes. We would l ike you to send more samples because we

are going to introduce i t to our affil iates nationwide.”

In the third week after sending the sample, Pathé Marconi in France

launched the f irst bid for a release application. So, as a result of negotiat ions

between Toshiba Records and Pathé Marconi, a decision was made to release a

record with four songs, Ue wo Muite Arukou , Ano Musume no Namae ha

Nanten Kana , Kyu-chan no Zuntatatta and Sore ga Nayamisa . The master tape

for the original recording had been sent to France one week before.

Following on from France, releases of the Sakamoto Kyu record were

planned for many countries including America, Britain, Belgium and Austral ia.

In France, the single with four songs was released on the Pathé Marconi label

in August 1962. Simultaneously with the French disc, the record was probably

also released in Norway, Denmark, I taly and Switzerland, where Sakamoto

Kyu had been on his promotional tour.

The first important action was that EMI, the largest record company in

Britain, urged affi l iated record companies in Europe and America to release

Ue wo Muite Arukou . The story of the circulation and growth of Ue wo Muite

Arukou s tarted in the European countries in 1962.

Even so, who was i t that had been trying to pressure EMI since the spring of

1962 to take on the worldwide market with a song called Ue wo Muite Arukou?

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On January 19, 1963, Dave Dexter, Jr. must have been checking the weekly

English charts a bit more carefully than usual .

The reason was that a single by The Beatles had shown some noteworthy

chart action. Please Please Me had cl imbed the charts with a momentum

hardly to be expected of the second record from newcomers, reaching the No.

2 spot as early as the second week of the release. This was after the EMI

request for a US release had already been refused, but there were reasons to

feel uneasy.

Sukiyaki by Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen had risen to the No. 10 spot in the

same week. A Dixieland jazz instrumental was r ight up Dexter ’s al ley. There is

no one left who knows whether or not Dave Dexter, Jr. heard the song at that

t ime. But, three months later he heard Sakamoto Kyu singing Ue wo Muite

Arukou , and it is highly l ikely that he thought of Sukiyaki for the t i t le because

he had heard Sukiyaki by Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen.

In May, Dave Dexter, Jr. , who twice gave The Beatles the brush-off , released

Japan’s Sakamoto Kyu singing Ue wo Muite Arukou under the t i t le Sukiyaki on

the American singles market . I t became a huge hit , and by June 15, i t had

captured the No. 1 spot on the hit charts across the United States. In August ,

Sakamoto Kyu visi ted America, and when the effects of the promotion were

added in, sales ultimately reached one mill ion. Before long, he was even

presented with a splendid Gold Record award by the Recording Industry

Association of America.

From the viewpoint of the job of an international A&R producer, achieving a

mill ion-seller with a song sung in the Japanese language by a Japanese art ist

was surely an unprecedented achievement.

With i ts huge success on the American market, Sukiyaki was released by

recording companies affi l iated with EMI in many countries worldwide and

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became a major hit .

Then, in September, the Beatles crushed the high and powerful barrier

represented by the person of Dave Dexter, Jr.

When Capitol released I Wanna Hold Your Hand on December 26, 1963,

there followed one huge explosion after another. Suddenly, even people in

America had given the thumbs up to The Beatles.

I t was the best possible t iming for America to encounter The Beatles. In the

event, the same was true for The Beatles. That is precisely why The Beatles

phenomenon materialized l ike a huge explosion in pools of magma.

Behind the legend, there is the historical fact that in 1963, the song called

Sukiyaki and the art ists called The Beatles were squaring off on the stage of

the huge American market. Two A&R men, both with an extremely good ear,

the American Dave Dexter Jr. and the Englishman George Martin, had fai th in

their own sensibili t ies and fought fairly behind the scenes. The verdict was

handed down by the American market , by the sensibil i t ies of teenagers.

*2 The first releases on the Angel Records label were internationally famous

musical recordings anticipated by music aficionados at the t ime. The

classical works included Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 (conducted by

Furtwängler) , Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (conducted by Irving), and

Smetana’s Die Moldau (conducted by Furtwängler). Popular works included

Les Feuil les Mortes by Yves Montand, and L’Âme des Poètes by Yvette

Giraud.

A Great Music Man

Published on September 30, 1971, Toshiba Musical Industries: 10 Years of

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History consists of twenty-one chapters in chronological order. The moment I

read the second chapter, “The Partnership between Toshiba and EMI,” I f inally

arrived at the great music man who worked t irelessly to send Ue wo Muite

Arukou out into the world.

I t was Ishizaka Noriichiro.

The decision to release the single Kuroi Hanabira (Black Petals) after an

appeal by Nakamura Hachidai in 1959; Nakamura Hachidai’s study tour of

America and Europe in 1960 to broaden his knowledge; giving shape to talks

about writ ing a song for Nat King Cole who came to Japan in 1961; the move

by EMI to release Ue wo Muite Arukou in Europe in the spring of 1962—one

music man was instrumental to al l of this, and it was Ishizaka Noriichiro.

Of course, everything was connected.

A typical intellectual of the Meij i period, Ishizaka Noriichiro was born in

1906 and went to Keio University where he studied economics with Koizumi

Shinzo, who was also president of the universi ty. He mastered economics,

l i terature and history, but above all , he excelled at language studies. He was

proficient in English and Latin, and his knowledge of classical music was

unmatched by crit ics.

From the period before and during the war, to immediately after the end of

the war, the predecessor of Toshiba, Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd. , was

affil iated with the two largest record companies in Japan, the Japan Victor

Company and Nipponophone Co., Ltd. (Columbia Records). However, after the

war, the GHQ dismantled the zaibatsu , and the two record companies were

separated from Toshiba.* To restructure Toshiba, which had been thoroughly

weakened by violent industr ial disputes, Ishizaka Taizo,* an economist and

former bureaucrat with the Ministry of Communications and Transportation

(subsequently, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, currently the

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and Japan Post) ventured to

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put himself in the f ir ing l ine by accepting the posit ion as president.

Ishizaka Taizo, who had developed Daiichi Seimei into a leading l ife

insurance company in the period before and during the war, took on the

restructuring of Toshiba. By negotiat ing face to face with the unions, he

achieved personnel reductions of as many as 6,000 people, and the

restructuring succeeded very well in a fairly short t ime. Together with Hitachi

and Matsushita, Toshiba was soon dubbed one of the Big Three electronic

manufacturers, and became a leader of the business community during the

period of rapid growth after the war.

Ishizaka Taizo not only focused on financial aspects, but he also thought that

the company should be represented in the cultural f ield. With Toshiba back on

the corporate growth track, Ishizaka Taizo considered the historical

background of the company, and entered the recording industry.

The origins of Toshiba Records go back to the establishment of a record

business at Toshiba Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd. At the t ime, Ishizaka Taizo

dispatched his second cousin, Ishizaka Noriichiro, to take charge of the

business.

Under the guidance of an engineer dispatched from EMI, Toshiba completed

a factory for manufacturing records in 1955. In 1956, the company signed a

contract with Capitol to expand into American popular music.

Laying the groundwork a l i t t le at a t ime with classical and popular music,

Toshiba Records boldly struck out on the road to producing Japanese music

from 1958 onward.

Toshiba Musical Industries: Ten Years of History is not only the history of a

company, i t is also a record of the blood, sweat and tears of a corporation that

rose from the burnt-out ruins after the war, l ike a growing boy chasing his

dreams. Reading hard between the l ines, some passages even bring to mind the

personal history of Ishizaka Noriichiro, which also makes i t valuable reading

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material .

The book is a concise record of the aspirations, mission, troubles and joys of

a great music man, who took a provisional project in a corner at Toshiba with

only a few people assigned to i t , and in a mere ten years after the formal

launch in 1960, turned i t into a leading record company with as many as a

thousand employees. Behind each word is the unique thinking of Ishizaka

Noriichiro about the past that the company had traversed, and the future

ahead.

For Toshiba, which had only just embarked on the new business, the tr iumph

of winning tr iple awards for new art ist , new lyricist and new composer at the

First Japan Record Awards in 1959 proved a bril l iant launch. The aim of

Toshiba Records was to create new Japanese songs suited to a new age.

The Dream of Popularizing Japanese Music Internationally

Routinely coming into contact with people involved in the international record

business, Ishizaka Noriichiro knew how enormous the world market was. But,

he was even more aware of how high the barriers were. With this

understanding, he dared take a proactive approach to the possibil i ty of

international success for a Japanese tune.

He worked out a plan of action with knowledge acquired by cutt ing back on

sleep to study and read vast numbers of books. I t was a matter of personal

confidence gained by building up relat ionships with key people overseas.

In 1962, Ishizaka Noriichiro f igured out that the essence of the music

business does not l ie in manufacturing and sell ing records, but in the song

creation and rights business. Based on this fundamental principle, and in order

to get Japanese songs and singers closer to the international market, he

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concluded fair contracts with the copyright holders and sold Japanese music

through established routes to partners who were American music publishers

and record companies.

For Ishizaka Noriichiro, the music man, the challenge of the big dream of

making Japanese music popular worldwide started in the spring of 1962 when,

in anticipation of the future music business, he set up a new department and

concluded a contract for Ue wo Muite Arukou r ight from the start . The first

posit ive feedback came from the European countries, including France. I t was

the idea of Pathé Marconi that they “wanted to give free play to the Japanese

original ,” so in France, the song was released in Japanese, and other countries

also followed France’s lead.

But the release of Ue wo Muite Arukou in Europe did not earn the rave

reviews, or rake in the dollars l ike newspapers and weekly magazines were

writ ing. The result was that you could hardly call i t a failure, but you could

also not say that i t was a successful hit .

There were reports of plans to release an English version in America, but at

some point i t came to nothing. Despite all the statements and art icles by

everyone concerned that I found, there is absolutely no trace of a recording of

an English version.

For some reason, i t seems that the experiment of launching an original

recording produced in-house by Toshiba Records onto the world market was

temporari ly terminated from the end of 1962 to 1963.

However, as the year 1962 drew to a close, something happened in Britain to

prove that the foresight and approach of Ishizaka Noriichiro had hit home.

The title Sukiyaki

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To have foreign musicians and singers doing covers of performances or songs

was another way of gaining populari ty abroad. This is how the cover of

Sukiyaki on Pye Records emerged.

The people at Pye Records probably had a strong feeling that the jaunty

Dixieland jazz version of Ue wo Muite Arukou arranged by Kenny Ball and His

Jazzmen would score a hit . Certainly, the preparations for the launch of the

single went ahead. In such cases, i t was a mandatory formali ty to obtain the

consent of the copyright holder to the recording.

Toshiba Music Publishing had authorized overseas music publishers to

manage copyright in their respective terri tories. Consequently, Pye Records

had to request permission from the EMI music publishing company that was

handling the rights in Britain.

How did Ishizaka Noriichiro react , and what conclusion did he draw, when

he received word from the music publisher in Britain that Pye Records had

contacted them, requesting permission to put out a cover version under the

English t i t le of Sukiyaki?

He had not been able to deliver good results r ight away with a song in

Japanese by Sakamoto Kyu, but he must have continued to search for

possibil i t ies overseas. His analysis probably found that i t would be quite a

stretch for a song with a diff icult Japanese t i t le to win wide acceptance among

foreigners. From the perspective of Europe and America, Japan was st i l l a

far-off small country at the t ime. I t was an age when the average person only

knew words l ike Fujiyama, Geisha or Tokyo.

Even so, the t i t le Sukiyaki that Pye Records gave the song had a hint of

mockery that was a long way from the image of the original Japanese t i t le. As

might be expected, Ishizaka Noriichiro knew the sinceri ty of the art ists who

had created the song, and he must surely have been bewildered.

Are there no other good song t i t les associated with Japan and easy to

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remember to substitute for Sukiyaki? Fujiyama , Sayonara , Tokyo , Sakura…

“I remember well that people from the office came to our home for a

meeting about the English t i t le for Ue wo Muite Arukou . If I’m not mistaken,

there were three suggestions for words that would be easy for Englishmen

and Americans to remember. At any rate, everyone talked about how it was

important to first get the name to st ick. Finally, in a rare display, I

remember hearing my father raise his voice when he made the decision,

s tat ing point-blank that they would go with Sukiyaki .” (Interview with

Ishizaka Kuniko in March 2011)

Ishizaka Noriichiro’s oldest daughter, Ishizaka Kuniko, told me about this

important episode.

This is how a single called Sukiyaki by Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen became

a hit when it charted in the Top Ten in Britain in January 1963.

However, by the t ime the long-awaited positive results finally came and the

issue of making the next move arose, Ishizaka Noriichiro was, unfortunately,

robbed of t ime to work on overseas expansion. The reason was that in the third

year since the company was established, i t became clear that Toshiba Records

was in a management crisis.

The Future of Ue wo Muite Arukou

Trying to extract the company from the worst-case scenario that had put i ts

continued existence in danger, Ishizaka Noriichiro reverted to the original

format, and gave his undivided attention to consolidating the whole company

into a specialist in making, producing and sell ing records. I t was at this

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cri t ical point when an unexpected telegram arrived from Capitol in America.

I t said that they wanted Toshiba to send a master tape of Ue wo Muite

Arukou by Sakamoto Kyu as soon as possible.

The telegram said that Capitol had already distr ibuted Ue wo Muite Arukou

to radio stat ions al l over the United States in the form of a radio release, and

since the response from DJs and l isteners was extremely positive, they

planned a formal release in the United States as soon as the master tape from

Japan arrived. The good news was that Capitol planned formal release on the

American market , which as regarded as the most diff icult one to crack.

Unexpectedly, the day when Ue wo Muite Arukou would be recognized

worldwide had come from the opposite direction.

I t appeared that the song was frequently aired on the radio al l over the

United States, not only on the West Coast where there were many people of

Japanese descent, but also on the East Coast and in the Midwest. I t was clear

that there was strong potential for a hit song. To have a hit in America in a

language other than English, and in Japanese to boot, rather than in Europe

where many people were said to appreciate the arts and culture of other

countries, was an event completely outside the scope of the imagination.

Incidentally, during the talks with Capitol about a release, the Japanese side

discovered something completely unexpected.

The Capitol radio release of the record had been given the t i t le Sukiyaka . At

f irst , the Japanese side thought that i t was a simple spell ing error, or a

misprint in the telegram, but Capitol had intentionally given it the t i t le of

Sukiyaka .

Clearly, i t was Dave Dexter, Jr. who was the man behind the t i t le Sukiyaka .

With pop songs, the names of the art ists and the names of the songs

constantly roll off the l ips in sets , such as Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel ,

Nat King Cole’s Love , or Yesterday by the Beatles So, i t was advantageous to

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No. 9 December–January 2011/2012

use words that radio station DJs found easy to say, and that l isteners found

memorable.

Compared to Ue wo Muite Arukou , Sukiyaki was easier to say and to

remember, but Sukiyaka was even easier to remember. The reason is that the

Saka in Kyu Sakamoto and the yaka in the song t i t le have a similar r ing, which

emphasizes the accent. Consequently, when the radio DJs introduced the song,

i t stuck firmly in the mind.

When Ishizaka Noriichiro persuaded them to go back to Sukiyaki because the

word Sukiyaka is impossible in Japanese, the record had been distr ibuted to

radio stat ions across the United States, and DJs al l across America had already

come to know it by the name Sukiyaka .

In fact , both the score and a cover record by the Billy Vaughn Orchestra had

been marketed and sold as Sukiyaka . The record by Sakamoto Kyu was

immediately changed to Sukiyaki , but the other versions on the market were

sold as Sukiyaka , and the name remained in wide circulat ion.

Thanks to a music man who dreamed of making Japanese music popular

around the world, Japan’s Ue wo Muite Arukou became Sukiyaki worldwide.

* At this t ime, Hitachi became affil iated with Colombia, and after an

interval of four years, Matsushita incorporated Japan Victor in a capital

affi l iation.

* Born in Tokyo in 1886 (Meiji 19), Ishizaka Taizo became the second

chairman of the Nippon Keidanren after his st int as president of Toshiba.

With the permission of the author and the publisher, this art icle was abridged

and translated from the series “Ue wo muite aruko,” NEPPU , March 2010 –

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No. 9 December–January 2011/2012

June 2011, [this series of art icle was published as Ue wo Muite Aruko by

Iwanami Shoten, Publishers](Courtesy of STUDIO GHIBLI Inc.)

SATO Go

Born in 1952. As a music producer, he has managed famous Japanese

musicians including THE BOOM, Miyazawa Kazufumi and SUPER BUTTER

DOG. Since 2004, he has been working on a project reviewing the values of

Japanese rock, pop and so-called New Music, and establishing a category of

“J-Standard” songs, namely those which wil l be sung by future generations

and which may be considered cultural propert ies of Japan. Drawing on his

concept of J-Standard, Sato worked as senior producer on the album “1969” by

Pink Martini and Saori Yuki, which was released in October 2011 and topped

the Jazz chart in Apple’s i-Tunes Store in the United States.