Sake of the Song: The Wall Street Journal Correspondent Who Became Tokyo's First Pop Star

POST-WHATEVER with Ken Nishikawa · Apr 30, 2026 · 20m

In 1925, a young elite American journalist named Burton Crane arrived in Yokohama as a financial correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. This was, by any reasonable measure, a respectable career trajectory.

By 1931, he was Tokyo's biggest pop star.

Nobody planned this. Least of all Burton Crane.

Episode 5 of Post-Whatever “Sake of the Song: The Wall Street Journal Correspondent Who Became Tokyo's First Pop Star” tells the story of a man who learned Japanese in the bars of Asakusa, stumbled into a recording contract at a corporate drinking party, and accidentally…