Mariya Takeuchi & Eiichi Ohtaki -- Somethin' Stupid

I hadn't known the title nor the original singers of this song. But I used to hear the instrumental version of "Somethin' Stupid" since it was used as the backing song for one of the sponsors for "Sounds of Japan" back in the 1980s. I had just thought it was some sort of Italo-lounge tune for the longest time. But then years later, I was surprised to hear this very song sung by Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams in a music video which kinda resembled all those old frothy romantic comedies in the 1960s with Rock Hudson and Doris Day.

Then, when I picked up Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）massive BEST album, "Expressions"(2008), I came across "Somethin' Stupid" as one of the later tracks on Disc 1. I had first assumed that it was going to be a duet between her and hubby Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. But in actual fact, her partner turned out to be former Happy End member and crooner Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）. According to Takeuchi's comments about this particular ballad, she said that Ohtaki had wanted to sing it with his own daughter, provided that she had decided to follow in her father's footsteps. But alas, she didn't become a singer, so Takeuchi was asked to come in instead.

It's simply a little bit of adorable that had originally been a track on Takeuchi's album of covers, "Longtime Favourites" which was released back in October 2003. It hit No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies and became the 48th-ranked album of 2003. The song also has its own Japanese title of "Koi no Hitokoto"（恋のひとこと...A Word of Love）.

The original song was written and composed by the late C. Carson Parks in 1966 as a duet with his wife, Gaile Foote. However, the most famous version of "Somethin' Stupid" was the one which came out in March 1967 with Frank Sinatra and his daughter, Nancy. According to Wikipedia, the Sinatra version spent a month at the top of Billboard, and apparently remains the only father-daughter tune to reach the No. 1 spot in the United States.