Turning Japanese

"Turning Japanese"
Song

"Turning Japanese" is the most popular song released by the English band The Vapors from their album New Clear Days, and the song for which they are known best. The song's lyrics consist mainly of the singer talking about pictures of his love. Musically, the song features an Oriental Riff played by guitar.

This song is available as downloadable content for Rock Band 3 since July 5, 2011.

Overview

The song was believed to refer euphemistically to the face someone makes during the act of masturbation. In a VH1 True Spin special the band denied this. Songwriter David Fenton explained: "Turning Japanese is all the clichés about angst and youth and turning into something you didn't expect to."

The band knew they had a success with "Turning Japanese", so much so that they waited until their second single before releasing it, fearing that if they released it as their first they would become "one-hit wonders", but they never matched its success.

The song enjoyed some sales in Japan after its great success in Australia, where it spent two weeks at Number One during June 1980.

Covers and Parodies

• "Turning Japanese" was cover versioned by the band No Use for a Name and released during 1997 on Before You Were Punk, a collection of 1980s new wave tracks covered by modern day punk rock bands.
• A ska punk version of the song was done by the band Skankin' Pickle, on their 1994 release Sing Along With Skankin' Pickle.
• This song was covered by the glam rock band Peppermint Creeps.
• Liz Phair covered the song on Juvenilia in 1995.
• The song was featured in an advertisement for KFC, in which a man at a karaoke bar gets up and drunkenly sings the chorus.
• A cover of the song is a playable track in the PlayStation 2 music game Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s.
• In "Endless, Nameless" the hidden track of Nirvana's 1991 album, Nevermind, Kurt Cobain begins to sing, "I think I'm turning Japanese; I think I'm turning Japanese; I really think so..."
• The band Jawbreaker plays it as part of their song "With or Without U2", a medley of "With or Without You" by U2, "Skulls" by The Misfits, and "Turning Japanese".
• The now-defunct Irish band The Revs did a cover version during 2002.
• The band Coldplay covered the song at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion during 2003.
• In an episode of Bill Nye: The Science Guy the song was parodied with lyrics regarding static electricity replacing the original lyrics.
• The song was featured in a segment of Jackass: The Movie titled "Night Pandas", where the team engages in various shenanigans on the streets of Tokyo while wearing panda costumes.
• The soft drink Dr. Pepper did a parody of the song in one of their advertisements named "Turning 23", referring to its 23 flavors.
• Rick Moranis performed the song with a parodic jazz style as Tom Monroe on the Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV.
• The band Sonny Hoopskirt & His Parody Band parodies this song and call it "Turning Into Jellybeans" on their EP, Parodies Taste Good.
• The band Incubus have covered the song during live performances. Punk rock band No Use for a Name also recorded a cover version for the compilation album Before You Were Punk that is frequently misattributed to Incubus.
• Kirsten Dunst sang "Turning Japanese" in a McG/Takashi Murakami art music video named "Akihabara Majokko Princess" featured at 'Pop Life' at a Tate Modern 2009 exhibit in London, UK, a video which was displayed once again with the show during its showing at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa, Canada.

Chart performance

Chart (1980)	Peak position
Australian ARIA Charts	1
Canadian Singles Chart	7
New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart	9
UK Singles Chart	3
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	36
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs	34