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3 december 2019

Yamashita Tasuro’s ‘Christmas Eve’ is the Japanese ‘Last Christmas’

 

 

What ‘Last Christmas’ is for us here in the West, is Yamashita Tasuro’s (who is considered the inventor of “city pop”, the genre that defines bands like Cero and Suchmos) ‘Christmas Eve‘ for the Japanese. The song was conceived in 1983 and has remained the classic Christmas song in Japan ever since.

The song is set to a new video every so often and I’m guessing the above is from the late nineties and used as promotion of the Japanese Railways. A nice little love story, for Christmas in Japan is not so much about baby Jesus as it is about couples.

The Christmas tradition in Japan, by the way, is eating out. Not in a fancy restaurant, but at KFC’s.

Christmas, Japan, Music