Today I was thinking about Kyu Sakamoto. I wonder how many people remember him. He had a number one song in 1963 with a tune called “Sukiyaki”. This is the only number one song in the history of the charts to be sung entirely in Japanese. And it’s one of only a handful of completely foreign sung songs that hit the charts. The word “Sukiyaki” is never heard in the song and really has nothing to do with the song. It was renamed this for American audiences. The song’s original title is “Ue o muite aruko” which means “I look up when I walk”. It’s basically a very sad song of lost love. Sakamoto died in Japan’s worse airplane crash in history in 1985. This was his only hit in the US, but he was well known in Japan.