Dancing all night - Olet ystäväin

The second stop in our round trip around the world with Katri Helena is Japan. Katri recorded "Olet ystäväin" (You're my friend) in 1980 and it was released as a B-side to her single "Johnny Blue" in 1981. There's something unexplicably fascinating about this simple song. The original one was written by a Japanese singer/songwriter Monta Yoshinori, and entitled "Dancing All Night". Only the refrain was in English, the rest was sung in Japanese. This record was the debut single for Monta, and it was released in 1980 under the name "Monta & Brothers". The single went quickly to Number 1 in Japanese charts and stayed there for 10 consecutive weeks. It was the most popular song in Japan that year. And has become a great karaoke favourite. It's very rare that a Japanese pop song gets covered in Finland, but this was a well-deserved exception. Monta Yoshinori has since made a succesful career also in movies.

Here's the pair: