Short answer: "Sukiyaki" is the English-market title of Ue o Muite Arukō ("I Look Up as I Walk"), a Japanese song sung by Kyu Sakamoto, written by lyricist Rokusuke Ei and composed by Hachidai Nakamura. It came out in Japan on 15 October 1961 and reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in June 1963. The song has nothing to do with food. It is about a man who keeps his face turned up while he walks so that his tears will not fall, and Ei wrote it after walking home from the failed 1960 protests against the US–Japan Security Treaty. This week the song is back in the news because Sukiyaki, a new film about the three men who made it, opened the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival on 26 October 2026.
Why "Sukiyaki" is in the news this week
Director Takahisa Zeze's music drama Sukiyaki was the opening-night gala of the Tokyo International Film Festival on 26 October 2026, after a world premiere in Hawaii. Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Screen Daily all covered the opening. The film runs 155 minutes and follows composer Hachidai Nakamura (played by Junichi Okada), lyricist Rokusuke Ei (Tori Matsuzaka) and singer Kyu Sakamoto (Taiga Nakano) from wartime Japan to 1985. Screen Daily reports that Toho will release it in Japanese cinemas on Christmas Day.
So a lot of people are asking the same questions again: what the song actually says, why an American label named it after a beef hot pot, and how a song in Japanese got to the top of the US charts. Here is the story, with credits first.
Who wrote and sang "Sukiyaki"? The credits
- Original title: 上を向いて歩こう (Ue o Muite Arukō), meaning "I Look Up as I Walk" or "Let's Walk Looking Up"
- Singer: Kyu Sakamoto (born 10 December 1941, died 12 August 1985)
- Lyricist: Rokusuke Ei
- Composer: Hachidai Nakamura
- Producer: Kōji Kusano
- Released: 15 October 1961 in Japan (Toshiba); 1963 in the US and Canada (Capitol) and the UK (HMV)
- Genre: kayōkyoku (Japanese popular song) with an orchestral pop arrangement
- Length: about 3 minutes 5 seconds
In Japan the three men are remembered as the "689" trio. The nickname is a pun on their names: roku (six) in Rokusuke, hachi (eight) in Hachidai and kyū (nine) in Kyu. The new film uses that partnership as its spine. It is less a biopic of the singer than a story about a lyricist, a composer and a young vocalist who made one song together and then had to live with what it became.
What does "Ue o Muite Arukō" mean?
The title is an invitation: let's walk with our heads up. In the song, the narrator walks alone at night and looks up at the sky so that his tears stay in his eyes instead of running down his face. The verses move through memories and feelings rather than a clear plot. Nobody in the song is named, and the loss is never explained.
That vagueness was deliberate. Ei wrote the words while walking home from the 1960 Anpo protests, the huge demonstrations in Tokyo against the renewal of the US–Japan Security Treaty. The protests failed and the treaty went through, and the lyric carries that mood of frustration and dejection. But Ei kept the words general so they could fit any loss, including a broken heart. Most listeners outside Japan heard a lonely love song, and that reading is fine too.
The emotional trick of the song is the contrast. The melody is bright and almost bouncy, Sakamoto sings with a light, slightly playful tone, and there is a whistled passage in the middle. The words, meanwhile, are about trying not to cry in public. That gap between a cheerful sound and a sad subject is a big part of why the song has worked as comfort in hard times ever since.
A note on lyrics: Ue o Muite Arukō is still under copyright, so Lyriccs does not reproduce its words here. The official recording is embedded below, and licensed lyric services carry the full text.
Why is it called "Sukiyaki"?
Sukiyaki is a Japanese hot pot dish of thinly sliced beef cooked at the table. The word does not appear in the song and has no link to its meaning. Western labels chose it because it was short, catchy and one of the few Japanese words English-speaking buyers already knew. A Newsweek columnist at the time compared it to releasing "Moon River" in Japan under the title "Beef Stew".
The renaming says a lot about how the music business treated non-English songs in the early 1960s. It also explains why many people outside Japan know the tune well but have never heard its real title.
How a Japanese-language song reached No. 1 in America
At home the song was a hit straight away. It topped the sales chart in the Japanese magazine Music Life for three months and was ranked Japan's No. 1 song of 1961. Two years later it reached English-speaking markets with the new name, and in June 1963 it spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also topped the US adult contemporary chart, reached No. 18 on the R&B chart and went to No. 1 in Australia, New Zealand and Norway. It peaked at No. 6 in the UK and No. 2 in West Germany.
The US chart run is still remarkable. "Sukiyaki" is one of very few non-English songs to top the Hot 100 and the first in a non-European language. It stayed the only Hot 100 No. 1 by an Asian act until BTS reached the top with "Dynamite" in 2020. NPR has described its success as a symbol of Japan returning to the world stage after the Second World War. Worldwide, the single is reported to have sold more than 13 million copies.
Sakamoto's next US single, "China Nights (Shina no Yoru)", reached only No. 58 in 1963. After that, no artist from Japan reached the US pop chart for 16 years.
The English versions: A Taste of Honey and others
The best-known English-language "Sukiyaki" is not a translation. Janice-Marie Johnson of the American group A Taste of Honey had loved Sakamoto's record since hearing it on the radio at age nine in 1963, and after the band's success she decided to remake it. She asked Rokusuke Ei for a literal translation. Ei sent one, but it did not give her complete English sentences, so she wrote new words to carry the spirit of the song.
Johnson later said she saw three possible readings of the original: a man facing execution, someone trying to stay hopeful through life's trials, or the end of a love affair. She chose the love story. A Capitol executive and producer George Duke were doubtful at first, but Duke built a slow ballad arrangement around her idea, and the single came out in March 1981 from the album Twice as Sweet. Earlier, Jewel Akens had recorded the melody in 1966 with different lyrics as "My First Lonely Night". Screen Daily counts about 70 cover versions in total.
If you only know one of these covers, go back to the 1961 original. The English versions turn it into a smooth love ballad; Sakamoto's version keeps the strange, brave cheerfulness that makes it moving.
Kyu Sakamoto's death and the song's long afterlife
Kyu Sakamoto died on 12 August 1985, aged 43, when Japan Air Lines Flight 123 crashed on Mount Takamagahara in Gunma Prefecture. The crash killed 520 people and is still the deadliest single-aircraft accident in history. The new film ends with that loss, after a reunion of the trio.
The song kept travelling without him:
- NASA played an instrumental version over the radio to the Gemini VII astronauts, making it one of the first pieces of music sent to people in space.
- Japan Post issued a 50-yen stamp for the song on 16 March 1999.
- After the March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Suntory ran TV spots in which 71 actors and singers sang parts of it as a message to keep moving forward. The same year it was heard in Studio Ghibli's From Up on Poppy Hill.
- Google honoured Sakamoto and the song with a Doodle on 15 October 2020.
- A remix was performed at the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in 2021.
The pattern is clear: in Japan, "Ue o Muite Arukō" has become the song people reach for when the country needs to keep its chin up. That is exactly what the title asks for.
How to listen to it today
A few details are worth noticing on the original recording:
- The whistling. The whistled section gives the record its carefree surface. Listen to how it sits right next to the saddest feeling in the song.
- Sakamoto's phrasing. He bends and clips syllables in a playful way that keeps the song from becoming self-pitying.
- Nakamura's arrangement. Nakamura was a jazz pianist before he wrote pop songs, and the light swing and orchestral touches show that background.
- The title line. Even without Japanese, you can hear the hook return on the title phrase. Knowing it means "let's walk looking up" changes how the whole song feels.
For another story about how a record was made and why it lasted, read our guides to Amy Winehouse's Back to Black at 20 and the meaning of "Forever Young". For a song tied to a political moment in India, see who wrote Vande Mataram. More song stories are on the Lyriccs blog.
FAQ
Is "Sukiyaki" a song about food?
No. The original title means "I Look Up as I Walk". "Sukiyaki" was a marketing title chosen for English-speaking countries because it was a familiar Japanese word.
Who wrote the lyrics to "Sukiyaki"?
Rokusuke Ei wrote the Japanese lyrics and Hachidai Nakamura composed the music. Janice-Marie Johnson wrote the separate English lyrics used by A Taste of Honey in 1981.
When was "Sukiyaki" No. 1 in the US?
It was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in June 1963.
What is the 2026 film Sukiyaki about?
It is Takahisa Zeze's drama about Nakamura, Ei and Sakamoto, from their early lives through the song's success to Sakamoto's death in 1985. It opened the Tokyo International Film Festival on 26 October 2026 and is due in Japanese cinemas on 25 December.
Sources
- Wikipedia: "Ue o Muite Arukō" (Sukiyaki): credits, release date, chart positions, covers and legacy
- Wikipedia: Kyu Sakamoto: biography and JAL Flight 123
- Screen Daily review of Sukiyaki (26 October 2026): cast, running time, Hawaii premiere and Christmas Day release
- The Hollywood Reporter: Sukiyaki to open the Tokyo Film Festival
- Wikipedia: 39th Tokyo International Film Festival
