muckefuck | I got yer world music right here!

While waiting for our directionally-challenged paper pusher, I followed a link posted by

foodpoisoningsf to some softcore bearporn on YouTube. I was watching some tasteful footage of men in fundoshi set to some warbly early 60s Japanese pop when

monshu came passing down the hall. "I haven't heard this song in a long time," he said wistfully.

At first, I thought he was joking. Then I waited for him to notice that it wasn't actually the song he thought it was but a Japanese-language remake. But, no, it was the song he thought it was. Thirty years before the Pizzicato Five, an artist named Kyu Sakamoto swept the world with a sweet simple tune originally called "Ue o muite arukō" but that reached number one in the States under the title "Sukiyaki".

I've heard recordings of Eartha Kitt singing in Swahili, Johnny Cash in German, and "Girl from Ipanema" in the original Portuguese, but I still sometimes forget how international the pop charts could be in the days before Luaka Bop.