The first song by an Asian to reach No. 1 on the US charts. An English version in the 1970s used the melody but with entirely different lyrics (not a translation).
Kyu Sakamoto was killed in 1985 in the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123, the deadliest single plane crash in history.
Without a doubt one of the best lyricists of our time; another musician once said, "Kristofferson writes the songs the rest of us wish we had written".