Whoever is listening to this crap should go listen to the original song with translation by the original artist. Kyu Sakamora, he is the original artist. He hated the American occupation of Japan. His memory and his song are a national treasure for the Japanese These bullshit lyrics were written by an American to make money.
Kyu Sakamoto died tragically with over 500 other passengers in a commercial plane accident in Japan. His original is so beautiful as is this remake. The pearls of music in my youth are blessings for the ears and soul. This song begs to be re-recorded by a modern pop singer.
It can never be rerecorded as wonderfully as this sultry, sensitive, soulful, subtle version by A Taste of Honey. Janice-Marie Johnson's voice is oozingly beautiful.
I forgot about this song, but yeah, my childhood living with grandma and grandpa in flint. Flint was cool when it was the murder capital believe it or not, especially compared to how it is now. So sad.
This was a great time. I was looking at Billboard's Hot 100 for 1981 and this track finished #22 for the year. But if you look at the entire chart, there was every kind of music you could imagine represented: country, pop, soul, rock 'n roll. Everything from the Oak Ridge Boys to Foreigner and Stevie Wonder to Barbara Streisand. What an amazing time for music lovers!
This reminds me of my husband who I lost. It still makes me cry. Beautiful lyrics, fantastic voices and lovely koto instruments. These ladies overflow with talent, style and beauty.
I was just crying thinking of my late husband. Listening to this made me think of how much I love(d) him. then I saw your comment ... sweet memories...
entered Billboard March 7, 1981 ..reached #3 originally a #1 hit for Kyu Sakamoto in April, 1963, the first and only Japanese artist to reach #1 in Billboard
Words can't express how this song makes a person feel...and the beat with the oriental chimes...it's so beautiful, I'm truly grateful to be able to listen to this masterpiece
Diez those "oriental chimes" as you call it is actually the Japanese "Koto" instrument. In this particular song it is being played by the master herself, June Kuramoto of the band Hiroshima. Lionel
Lionel Pichon I would say thanks for the correction,but I feel it isn't me you want to educate but rather brag and flaunt your "higher knowledge"...no thanks
Diez spurling I don't think that Lionel was trying to show up anyone with his "higher knowledge" (as you put it). Way too many sensative people on here..
still listening in 2020.. wish we can go back in time when this song was out and have one last conversation/laugh with our loved ones we lost! beautiful memories growing up on this song 😭😢 ❤️
Your post hit home; when this song was out, my younger brother & both of my parents were still alive. I lost my brother in 1994, my mom in 2018, my dad...last month.
Karen: I am sorry for your loss. I lost my Father in 2003 and my Mother in 2016. 1981, the year this song came out, was a great time for music. I was 17, and if I knew then what I know now, I would have spent more time with my grandparents, Aunts, and Uncles- nearly all of which are gone now. It will get better with time dealing with your grief. Always be thankful for your memories- they can be very comforting at times.
I love both versions,I was born in 1963 and was getting ready to graduate from high school when this version came out in 1981,I haven’t heard this song in years,thank you for the memories!😊
63 here too. This was playing whe I met my first girlfriend summer of '81 after graduation. She was killed in December of 81 in an MVA. Bittersweet memories.
The original song in Japanese is hauntingly beautiful. This version by Taste of Honey is a masterpiece. The lyrics, while not an accurate translation, which would be quite impossible anyway, perfectly capture the original. Perfect!
That’s right there is not a single word from the original, but my point is that the interpretation is perfect. It’s a translation from the Japanese into English, but the original is not realistically translatable. I have created a version where we alternate the original Japanese verses with the English verses. It works really well.
One of my Aunts fav songs, I listen to this when I miss her since she passed away from breast cancer...she was like another mom to me. I'm only 23 but I was raised on this kind of music so when she mentioned this song before she passed I already knew what she was talking about and it hurt cause this song is so beautiful...she passed the day after that convo... RIP. Beautiful song
Sweet Cookie ..... This song is a CLASSIC. Graduated from HS class of 1981, Plenty nites on the phone with my GF, Her getting ready for college me to the service (later going to college). This song Atlantic Starr, Switch, Ray Goodman & Brown were just a couple of others we would play on the Telephone until seeing who get sleepy first and play the WHO WILL SAY GOOD NITE first ! lol .... We ROMANCED young ladies ..... only the 80's ! ..... Where's my Delorean to take me BACK to the FUTURE !
castortroykrb awww now I love hearing things like that, nothing like true romance. It feels soooo good! Thanks for sharing and have a great ear for music!
This song they crafted is the most original, melodically arranged piece of love pop song I ever heard. Elements of Japanese culture and American nostalgia combined in a very intelligent song. I can almost picture an epic Hollywood movie about an American soldier and a Japanese girl love story in world war 2.with this song as an intro or ending credits.
Haven't there been a few with American soldiers and Asian women? A few forbidden love stories and discovering love children they didn't know about. Even in episodes of tv shows like Air Wolf
Yep original version is in Japanese sang by Kyu Sakamoto , 2nd version in English by a taste of honey and 3rd version in Spanish by Selena y Los Dinos ( Selena Quintanilla Perez)
"This version used a koto played by Hazel Payne. A Taste of Honey's version of "Sukiyaki" first appeared on their 1980 album". I could not find Ghetzen anywhere. So, no ghetzen and no man. A woman and a koto. I have three I brought back from Japan. Was stationed there from 2009 to 2012=great memories.
at a house party or block party or a jam at the respective rec centers or school gyms.... after rockin to the hard hip hop break beats..... we'd slow it down and then you'd pull a cutie and slow drag to this jam here......yes , yes y'all......1980s ya'll..... New...... York.....City
From 35 years ago this month in June 1981. How ironic Kyu Sakamoto's original hit number one exactly 18 years earlier on 6/15/63. Both versions are great
Celestine IsSharkeishaNO Thank You for that! I was just getting ready to google it! I just saw June Kuramoto and Hiroshima play in Seattle this past weekend. They were awesome! June’s the best Koto player in the world hands down. I loved this song in high school.😁
"You took your love away from me" February 4,2019 My whole life changed. Mine forever heartbreak. I'm truly missing You. Rest Mine Loving husband. I truly love you.
Think of alll of the Brazilian songs that are the same. Now imagine all of the classics written in English and the effect they must have had all over the world. Its about the human experience in the end.
She was refused credit for the English lyrics loosely based on the Japanese. Tears. She took a big hit and gave it to an even bigger, more diverse audience with sensitive, poignant words. Brilliant!
Grew up hearing Kyu Sakamoto's version in Japanese as a little boy in Thailand, rediscovered it again in english by A taste of honey as a teenager in Detroit. Now I just heard a version in french by Clementine and german version by Yvonne Carre. They are all good and soulful, the words are haunting and thanks to A Taste of Honey I will never forget this song. Nirandorn Neville
I heard A taste of Honey's rendition first, but I watched this movie called From Up on Poppy Hill, and it was playing the original song, and I kept thinking, "This song sounds so familiar!" After doing some searching, I was able to find out that this song was a rendition after all. I'm really glad that I now know the original. They're both beautiful in their own unique, and it makes me appreciate how music knows no boundaries, not even the boundaries of language or of a country can stop music.
The lyrics are not the translation from the original version sung by Kyu Sakamoto. Rokusuke Ei wrote the song on his way back from a protest against a Treaty of Mutual Cooperation between the United States and Japan. The protest was a failure and while walking home he wrote this song but left the lyrics a little generic so that it could also relate to lost love. But its about a man looking up to the stars and whistling this tune so his tears won't fall to the ground. Something like that. LoL.
Yeah, I knew it wasn't a translation of it, but it's considered a cover because it uses the same melody. Thanks for the background on the original song though.
I have to laugh when people feel like calling this one original. Pretty funny I heard Kyu Sakamoto's in the 70's when my parents played it or when it ran on the radio. I grew up in the 80's so I sure did listen to both. This one is not bad but there seems to be more emotion to the original. All versions are hauntingly soul filling for sure. We all have our favorites.
One of the most unique r&b ballads of that year mainly due to the inclusion of the Koto, giving it that nice Japanese flavor...Sukiyaki, as done by Taste Of Honey is delicate, exotic and quite beautiful...
+paul simmons yep it's incredible how koto fixes well with a "soul" tune... amazing... I had listen to this version on a video of Tokyo by night here in youtube! I wonder if it still around..
You realize this is actually the opposite, this is an old Japanese song from The R&B element is the addition to the song. The Japanese title is Ue wo Muite Arukō, which means I look up as I walk. It's a protest song about continued military presence. A Taste of Honey just changed the lyrics around.
I was 11 years old when this came out I remembered being in the restaurant with my family and this song came on it was so beautiful my mom loved it I didn’t realize it was written in Japanese the English version is just as beautiful masterpiece🥰
Lawrence Malloy I have the 12" and album version on vinyl (of course, it was handed down to me with a billion other records. Nevertheless, I enjoy listening to them and I'm 18. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the golden age music.
SONG TAKE ME BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL WHEN MY FIRST GIRL FM JAPAN HAD TO LEAVE... SHE LEFT ME WITH KNOW HOW TO LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY..YEP !!! FIRST GIRL SHOWED ME HOW TO CARE
This song is absolutely beautiful and I love the fact that Janice wrote the lyrics as the original song was sung in Japanese also the fact that Hazel learned to play that Japanese string instrument (I can't think of its name now) for the song. They were very underrated as group.😉
Everytime I hear this song I think about Rickie W. Maxwell passed March 7,1981. Used to listen to song everyday wanting him to come back knowing he wouldn't. Even now listening to it get a little teary.
KantBserious b and then there are some of us that want to fall in love and a person that says they are only friends sends you this song you are very confused and sad
Yessirrr 💯 whoaaa God bless these ol skool music 🎶 groups from the 70's,80's,90's after "99" ion new skool completely took over the music 🎶 industry+rap of course ya digg dugg 😁💯 yo the world 🌎 evolves we have to evolve as ppl 💯🤔👍!!!!!
This song came out in '81 just after my husband died in March.I would play this song over and over because I kept hearing you took your love away from me. If only you were here you would wash away my tears and the sun would shine but in reality that would never be.
I met her in 1967, I an 18 Year old Marine, she was Papasan's daughter. Eighteen months and a lifetime of emotions later, I got orders to Vietnam. It wreck her so bad emotionally. I return to see her on my R and R. We conceived our daughter and again I left, promising to return. I returned home from the war mentally broken and for ten years I struggled with the memory of her and what could have been. Then I heard The Taste of Honey perform this song and I found peace. I'm back revisiting this tune to remember my youth. It had been an interesting experience.
There were times I could not bear to listen to this song. So much feeling, love and pain. Wonderfully done. If its meant to be, that love will return! Nothing worse than a broken heart, but they do mend with time.
My life went to hell in a handbasket in the Spring of 1981 too. My father died unexpectedly of a brain hemmoridge. I was ten. My family fell apart after that, so I feel ya!!
How can you miss a decade, or a moment in time you were never born in? All because the music of this era was straight from the heart, soulful, meaningful, and full of love.
9 месяцев назад
😌 The 80's were definitely a special time to be a kid.
+37diamond remember my mom telling me this in the 80's...said it was a big hit.. even though it was sung in Japanese... as a child she loved it.. . heard it for the first time a few years ago... it was nice.. but i like this version better...
Wow. 2020 and this song still sounds soooo good. Came here after reading about the S. Korean group BTS at the Billboard awards. This song was mentioned and I came here to listen. Loved this song when I was growing up in Montego Bay Jamaica. So much memories. Beautiful. Just beautiful.
