Tatsuro Yamashita -- DONUT SONG

 

Apologies...couldn't really find the most picturesque photo of a donut quickly enough, so I hope that you can bear up with this cruller in a plastic bag.

Yesterday when I wrote up the SHE IS SUMMER article for her "Donuts"（ドーナツ）song, commenter Scott was good enough to remind me that Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）had once written up a jingle for Mister Donut in Japan. Gave myself a Gibbs slap upside the head since I knew exactly what he was talking about. 

"DONUT SONG" was something that I used to hear all the time for those Mister Donut commercials. Those ads with Tats' delectable song first started up in 1996 and unfortunately I couldn't find any of them on YouTube, but all I can say is that this tropical-sounding "DONUT SONG" reminds me somewhat of "Under the Sea" from "The Little Mermaid", and may have been geared straight for the kiddies because of its catchiness. I can certainly imagine them dancing and singing the refrain, perhaps much to their parents' annoyance. Mister Donut, on the other hand, was probably jumping for joy at all of those donuts going like hotcakes in the various branches.

The song finally managed to get onto Yamashita's 11th studio album "COZY" which came out in August 1998. It hit No. 1 on Oricon and broke the Million barrier in sales. Interestingly enough, it was never released as a single.