Something in the air?
A haunting for Halloween, not that I hold much interest in the now commercialised event that seems to last for a week instead of one evening, inflicting yet more non-biodegradable plastic tat on the world. So, as in many songs, the obligatory key-change, to get that bit out of the way early.
Autumn 2000. I'm 35,000 feet up in the air, for what feels like an eternity. Singapore Airlines from London to Singapore, and then to Auckland. Good food options for a lacto-ovo-vegetarian, and a choice of in-flight entertainment. I choose the radio channel to see me through the night. Every so often the same song comes around again on a loop. "Dada, da da da da da...": Western 1960s cowboy pop in style maybe, with lyrics I presume to be in Japanese. The song quickly becomes one of those ear-worms that continually play in my head until the next one comes along.
Ear-worms are just ear-worms (from Ohrwurm, Ger.), but why did this particular air plucked from the air, as it were, become so consuming? After the New Zealand holiday, I occasionally tried to find the song's identity, using, as I recall, the likes of AltaVista and Yahoo (remember those?). After some six months, I casually hummed the tune to a dear friend and colleague (now sadly departed) who worked at an adjacent desk. She immediately identified it as "Sukiyaki". At an adjacent desk indeed: why hadn't I asked her previously?
The song is actually "Ue o Muite Arukō" (上を向いて歩こう), "I Look Up as I Walk"), released by Japanese singer Kyu Sakamoto in 1960. It became one of the best selling singles ever, with over 13 million copies worldwide. The song quickly became known, crassly, in English speaking countries (and just about everywhere else too) as "Sukiyaki". This word is nowhere to be found in the song itself, but just happened to be a familiar Japanese word in the US. "That will do", they thought. I can imagine such linguistic imperialism might be used to describe Calon Lan, a well-known hymn in Cymraeg meaning "a pure heart", as "Iechyd da" ("good health"/"cheers"), as it's a relatively well known expression to anglophones. Sukiyaki is in reality a sort of beef hot-pot.
Recalling that the song first caught my imagination high in a far-eastern sky, I later learned that Kyu Sakamoto (b.1941) had died in 1985, with 519 others, in the worst single-aircraft crash in history (Japan Air Lines Flight 123). The lyrics of Ue o Muite Aruko tell almost prophetically of a man who looks up whistling while walking so his tears won't fall to the ground, his memories and feelings outlined in the verses. The song's lyricist Rokusuke Ei had written generically of his frustration after taking part in protests against the imposed US-Japan Security Treaty, metaphorically as if for lost love.
The lyrics include these lines:
The melody is fairly straightforward, using mostly the pentatonic scale (what you get using only the black notes on the piano), but a temporary transition to a more chromatic 'bridge section' of the song adds dramatic contrast. The tune begins with a repeated phrase, rising and falling as if stalling, before soaring high and tumbling back down. A whistled verse befits the meaning, and makes the song all the more haunting. It's not easy to listen unmoved knowing now about the later tragedy from 25 years after the song's release. It's as if Ue o Muite Arukō is circulating around the upper atmosphere in perpetuity.
Something in the air, in the air tonight. But those are other songs.LINKS
Sukiyaki (Ue o Muite Arukou) - Kyu Sakamoto (English Translation and Lyrics) - YouTube
Thunderclap Newman - Something In The Air (1969) - YouTube
Five Notes To Rule Them All: The Power of the Pentatonic Scale - Percussion Play
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I look forward to your comments. Also it would be nice to know where you are in the world. Thanks for reading.