Sukiyaki

Fifty years ago today, the No. 1 song in America was an import from Japan: a song about young love called "Sukiyaki," sung by Kyu Sakomoto.

Ian Condry, who teaches Japanese culture at MIT, says "Sukiyaki" transcended language because it hit an emotional nerve. The song spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard charts in June 1963 and was already a huge hit in Japan before its American debut. But what most listeners in the U.S. probably didn't realize was how it symbolized Japan's return to the world stage.

"1963 was when Japan was returning to the world scene after the destruction of WWII," Condry says. "1964 was the Tokyo Olympics. And Japan's economy was expanding globally and so, in some ways, the song is kind of an interesting metaphor for that global expansion of Japan on the world scene."

Kyu Sakamoto was the face of this new postwar Japan: a clean-cut, 21-year-old pop idol. But Condry says that underlying the song's sweetness was a story of sadness and loss.

"The lyricist Rokusukay Ey was looking back on the failure of the protest movement in Japan," he says.