Kyu Sakamoto -- Sayonara Tokyo（サヨナラ東京）

 

Not sure where I first heard this one by the late great Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）. Well to be more specific, I heard a cover of his "Sayonara Tokyo" on one of the kayo shows that we get on TV Japan. I didn't see the title at the "Uta Con"（うたコン）website so I'm assuming that it was probably on "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新・BS日本の歌...Songs of Japanese Spirit）. 

"Sayonara Tokyo" was released in July 1964 although it wasn't officially a Tokyo Olympics song. In fact, it was released some three months before the start of the Games, which were set for October since the host nation had wanted to avoid participating athletes potentially swooning in the notorious heat and humidity during a typical July in the nation's capital. And according to the J-Wiki article for the song, the record company had also wanted to avoid their star's record losing sales because of enormous interest toward the Olympics, so it was July.

It certainly doesn't sound like an Olympics song by any means with the verve and energy of Haruo Minami's（三波春夫）"Tokyo Gorin Ondo"（東京五輪音頭）. "Sayonara Tokyo" is simply a bittersweet farewell to the city and perhaps a now-former paramour that was created by the same dynamic duo behind Kyu's most famous hit "Ue wo Muite Arukou" (上を向いて歩こう) a few years earlier, lyricist Rokusuke Ei（永六輔）and composer Hachidai Nakamura（中村八大）. I do like the Latin guitar and the background chorus.

Still, despite the somewhat lonely lyrical theme and the title, Sakamoto ended up performing the song and its B-side "Kimi ga Suki"（君が好き...I Love You）, also created by Ei and Nakamura at the official welcome party for the Olympics. Not only that, he made another appearance on the 1964 edition of the Kohaku Utagassen to perform "Sayonara Tokyo". By the middle of the following year, the single sold around 600,000 records.