Aneka - Japanese Boy
Aneka - Japanese Boy


Aneka - Japanese Boy Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Aneka
Released: 1981

Japanese Boy Lyrics


He said that he loved me, never would go, oh oh, oh oh.
Now I find I'm sitting here on my own, oh oh, oh oh.
Was it somtehing I've said or done,
That made him pack his bags up and run?
Could it be another he's found?
It's breaking up the happy home.

Mister, can you tell me where my love has gone?
He's a Japanese Boy.
I woke up one morning and my love was gone,
Oh, my Japanese boy, ooh, I miss my Japanese boy.

People ask about him every day, oh oh, oh oh.
Don't know what to tell them, what can I say? Oh oh, oh oh.
If only he would write me or call
A word of explanation, that's all.
It would stop me climbing the wall.
It's breaking up the happy home.

Mister can you tell me where my love has gone?
He's a Japanese boy.
I woke up one morning and my love was gone,
Oh, my Japanese boy, ooh, I miss my Japanese boy.

Was it something I've said or done,
That made him pack his bags up and run?
Could it be another he's found?
It's breaking up the happy home.

Mister can you tell me where my love has gone?
He's a Japanese boy.
I woke up one morning and my love was gone,
Oh my Japanese boy.

Mister can you tell me where my love has gone?
Mister can you tell me where my love has gone?

Writer/s: ROBERT RAYMOND HEATLIE
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Japanese Boy
  • This song is a plea by Aneka for her absent lover to return home.
  • This combined a mix of styles, including New Wave, Disco and Asian.
  • Aneka (real name Mary Sandeman) was a Scottish folk singer who sang in Gaelic with the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra. She wore a kimono and Japanese wig and made up Japanese style to perform this, which was her only Top 40 hit. Sandeman found the name "Aneka" by looking through the Edinburgh phone book - the name she found was actually "Anika," but she changed it to avoid upsetting person she took it from.
  • This was a hit on the European continent as well and it was the first #1 in Britain by a British artist for the German company Hansa. It was not a hit in Japan as it was rejected by Hansa's Japanese record label for sounding too Chinese.
  • Sanderman's follow up song "Little Lady" reached only #50 in the UK. She then returned to performing Gaelic music.
  • Bobby Heatlie, former member of the Scottish rock band The Headboys, was also Aneka's arranger. He recalls in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, "Japanese Boy was a complete accident. I'd been working with Mary on some Scottish folk albums, when she said to me she'd love to have a bash at some Pop songs. Now keep in mind that she was almost six feet tall, spoke in a frightfully posh voice and was the respectable wife of a small town GP with two children. I never thought in a million years that she had a chance of making it in the Pop world. Anyway, she kept pestering me and I kept forgetting to write something for her, until one day she called me to say that the studio had been booked to record a song that I hadn't written yet. To cut a long story short I wrote the chorus, and I threw the whole thing together by taking bits from other songs that I had written years before. It was recorded as a demo, and was turned down by every major company. Then the German company took it on and it went straight into the charts, and eventually #1 all over the world. There was a massive panic as to what to about her image. Then someone came up with the wig and kimono. A complete transformation."