"Turning Japanese" is a song by English band the Vapors, from their 1980 album '' New Clear Days''. It was an international hit, becoming the band's most well-known song. The song prominently features the Oriental riff played on guitar.

Composition and recording

According to songwriter David Fenton, "Turning Japanese is all the clichés about angst and youth and turning into something you didn't expect." Fenton intended the song to be a love song, with the character of the song "pining over a photograph of his ex-girlfriend" in his bedroom, drawing from Fenton's own experience of being rejected. Fenton wrote the song in his flat, but had problems writing the chorus. He said that the chorus then came to him suddenly when he woke up at 4 a.m. with the lyric "Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese" in his head, and he used it even though the words and the song title did not "really mean much". The song was produced by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven, who had previously rejected a request to produce for the band after listening to

demos Demos may refer to: Computing * DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system * DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR * Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems * Plural for Demo (computer programming ...

sent to him by the band's managers John Weller (father of

Paul Weller John William Weller (born 25 May 1958), better known as Paul Weller, is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Weller achieved fame in the late 1970s as the guitarist and principal singer and songwriter of the rock band the Jam, alongside ...

) and

Bruce Foxton Bruce Douglas Foxton (born 1 September 1955) is an English singer, songwriter and musician. Foxton's music career spans more than 40 years. He came to prominence in the late 1970s as bassist and backing vocalist of mod revival band the Jam. ...

. The band's unsuccessful first single "Prisoners" was therefore produced by someone else. Coppersmith-Heaven later had another listen to the demos and agreed to produce "Turning Japanese" for them. He proposed several changes to the arrangement of the song, which were done. He recorded the Vapors live to capture the energy of the band, before stripping it down to just the drums, and then overdubbed the song. According to Fenton, the drummer did not like the song, and "just went 'Boom! Splat!'" in the recording, but the band thought it sounded good and kept it. The band suspected they would score a hit with "Turning Japanese", even delaying its release in order to make it their second single, hoping to avoid becoming "

one-hit wonder A one-hit wonder is any entity that achieves mainstream popularity, often for only one piece of work, and becomes known among the general public solely for that momentary success. The term is most commonly used in regard to music performers with ...

s". Nonetheless, they never matched the single's success. In Australia, it spent two weeks at No. 1 during June 1980. The song was also a minor hit in Japan. The music video was directed by

Russell Mulcahy Russell Mulcahy ( ; born 23 June 1953) is an Australian director of film, television, and music videos. He began his career directing music videos for artists like Elton John and Duran Duran, before making his feature directorial debut with the ...

Reception

The music video was among the first 200 played on

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

. It received heavy rotation, giving the song more exposure than mere radio airplay.

Covers

The American ska punk band, Skankin' Pickle, covered the song on their 1994 album Sing Along With Skankin' Pickle. A cover of the song was also featured on American singer-songwriter Liz Phair's 1995 EP

Juvenilia Juvenilia are literary, musical or artistic works produced by authors during their youth. Written juvenilia, if published at all, usually appear as retrospective publications, some time after the author has become well known for later works. Bac ...

. The song was featured on the soundtrack of the 1997 movie '' Beverly Hills Ninja'' covered by the band The Hazies. Kirsten Dunst recorded a cover, with an accompanying video filmed and directed by McG and produced by

Takashi Murakami is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial media (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between High art, high and low arts. His wo ...

in Tokyo in August 2009. On the Canadian sketch comedy series ''

Second City Television ''Second City Television'', commonly shortened to ''SCTV'' and later known as ''SCTV Network'' and ''SCTV Channel'', is a Canadian television sketch comedy show about a fictional television station that ran intermittently between 1976 and 1984 ...

'',

Rick Moranis Frederick Allan Moranis (; born April 18, 1953) is a Canadian actor, comedian, musician, producer, songwriter and writer. Moranis appeared in the sketch comedy series '' Second City Television'' (''SCTV'') in the 1980s and starred afterward in s ...

performed a lounge-style version of the song as the character Tom Monroe.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1980 songs 1980 singles The Vapors songs Japan in non-Japanese culture Music videos directed by Russell Mulcahy Number-one singles in Australia Song recordings produced by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven United Artists Records singles