Kyu Sakamoto's version grew out of the frustration of the 1960 protests against the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty and personal melancholy. Hachidai Nakamura's modern-jazz chord changes carry a hiccup-style rockabilly vocal. As a Japanese pop song, it sold over a million copies at home and was named the No. 1 song of 1961 in Japan.
R&B / Quiet Storm
A Taste of Honey's version is a 1981 redefinition with completely rewritten English lyrics. A mellow quiet-storm R&B track with a koto overlay played by June Kuramoto of the Japanese-American jazz band Hiroshima. As a bittersweet love ballad about a failed romance, it reached No. 3 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 on the R&B and Adult Contemporary charts.