Sukiyaki (上を向いて歩こう, "I Look Up As I Walk") is a Japanese-language song.
It was sung by Kyu Sakamoto, lyrics by Rokusuke Ei and melody by Hachidai Nakamura.
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.
In 1980, A Taste of Honey (band) was given permission by the original song's copyright holders to write the English-language lyrics and record.
The original title was too difficult to pronounce and remember so they looked for a word that short, catchy, recognizably Japanese and more familiar to English speakers.
"Sukiyaki", a Japanese hot pot dish, was a well know word that they were familiar to.
So it was used as the title of this song although it did not relate to the song's lyrics.
The Japanese lyrics tell the story of a man who looks up and whistles while he is walking so that his tears will not fall.
The Enlish lyrics are not a translation of the original Japanese lyrics,
but instead a completely different set of lyrics arranged to the same basic melody.
"Sukiyaki" is one of the best-selling singles, having sold over 13 million copies worldwide.
Several artists have recorded cover versions of the song based on the melody with different languages, English, French, German, Czech, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Cantonese .
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