is a Japanese song that was performed by Japanese singer

Kyu Sakamoto was a Japanese singer and actor. He was best known outside Japan for his international hit song "Ue o Muite Arukō" (known as " Sukiyaki" in English-speaking markets), which was sung in Japanese and sold over 13 million copies. It reached numbe ...

, with music by

Hachidai Nakamura was a Japanese songwriter and jazz pianist. Biography Hachidai Nakamura was born in Tsingtao, Republic of China, to Japanese parents, before moving to Kurume at a young age, where he attended high school. He graduated from Waseda University in ...

and lyrics by

Yukio Aoshima was a Japanese politician who served as Governor of Tokyo from 1995 to 1999. He is also well known as a TV actor, novelist, film director, screenwriter and songwriter. Early life and artistic career Yukio was born in Nihonbashi ward of Tok ...

. The song tells the story of a boy who meets a girl every day at a train station but is too afraid to confess his love to her. The song is written in a comical sense. When the song was released in Japan 1963, it sold over 8 million records. The song was covered by Re: Japan (special band of

Yoshimoto Kogyo is a major Japanese entertainment conglomerate. It was founded in 1912, Osaka, as a traditional theatre, and has since grown to be one of the most influential companies in Japan, employing most of Japan's popular owarai (comedy) talent, produci ...

) and reached the number-one position on the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in ...

charts in April 2001. The band

Ulfuls is a Japanese rock band from Osaka. The band name Ulfuls is derived from a misreading of the word "soulful," found on the cover of one of the band members' favorite records. They were signed by Toshiba-EMI in 1992, but after 15 years they transfe ...

covered the song, keeping with the comical procrastination theme, but with different lyrics that tell the story of an ambitious young man eager to be successful in business. A TV drama series and movie using the same name were made by the Japanese comedy duo Downtown.

References

{{authority control 1963 songs Kyu Sakamoto songs Japanese-language songs Oricon Weekly number-one singles Songs with music by Hachidai Nakamura