“Choo Choo TRAIN” by Zoo (1991)
I thought it would be fun to do a little series highlighting popular Japanese songs that are essentially unknown in the broader English-speaking world. Enjoy! (or not!) All translations by me unless otherwise noted.
“Choo Choo TRAIN” was released on November 7, 1991 and was the fourth single from a now defunct group called Zoo. The song, with its infectious early 90s light dance beat was the very first theme song for Japan Railway’s JRSkiSki campaign (to promote skiing trips).
What’s notable about “Choo Choo TRAIN” is not the charting or sales (it was only number 12 on the 1992 annual Oricon chart) but rather the song’s lengthy afterlife. Not only did Zoo pave the way for EXILE (Zoo member HIRO would go on to be their leader) and TRF (Zoo member YU-KI would go on to be the front woman of the group and, yes, she still looks fantastic) but nearly thirty years and numerous cover versions later, the echoes of this “Choo Choo TRAIN” remain alive and well in the public consciousness.
Zoo formed in 1989 as something of a dance collective appearing as house dancers on the trendy hip-hop themed music program DADA. This was well before apps like YouTube or TikTok could provide easy access to all the trendiest dances across the globe. And before Japan’s youth could tune into DADA to check out what Zoo was doing they would have had to either rent music videos from foreign artists or visit the clubs that American soldiers frequented and try to copy their moves. Zoo were the first group to really popularize hip-hop style dancing in Japan and send it mainstream.
They were doing okay, slowly gaining in popularity for that first year or so, but their big break (as member NAOYA tells it) came when a JR employee stopped by his dance studio to take a class and ended up booking the group for their new skiing campaign. They had been using the popular and well known actress-singer Koizumi Kyoko but there was going to be a change with this new campaign. They wanted to take a fresh, new group and make them pop.
Zoo would do just that until they disbanded at the end of 1995.
But their hit “Choo Choo TRAIN” would get a second life when former member HIRO revived it for summer festival a-nation in 2003 and got such an enthusiastic response that EXILE decided to record the cover version as their 10th single, which was released November 6, 2003. The single did so well that it launched EXILE to their first (but certainly not last) appearance on the annual New Year’s Eve musical extravaganza Kouhaku Utagassen.
“Choo Choo TRAIN” was written by Nakanishi Keizou (who would go on to cover the song himself) with lyrics by Satou Arisu. The original song had sort of a light, funky, disco-adjacent feel to it. Not nearly as hip-hop as what Zoo was used to doing on DADA but also not completely flavorless. The lead vocal is handled by SATSUKI who has a warm alto (very unlike the stereotype of female Japanese singers) and she belts out each syllable in the verses like puffs of smoke from a cartoon train.
月明かりに freak 誘えば my bro
みんな巻き込み急ぐ edge of time
胸に who’s that guy 届く i don’t care
Merry sympathy 一つになる just now
In the moonlight I’m a freak Can I tempt you my bro
Everyone is speeding towards the edge of time
I don’t care who the guy is as long as we’re vibing
We’re moving as one in harmony just now
This choo choo train is heading for bonetown and SATSUKI will sing us all the way there… at least until the chorus hits like a refreshing breeze on a crowded, sweaty dance floor.
Fun fun we hit the step step
同じ風の中 We know we love oh
Heat heat the beat’s like a skip skip
ときめきを運ぶよ Choo Choo TRAIN
Fun Fun we hit the step step
In the middle of the same breeze we know we love oh
Heat heat the beat’s like a skip skip
Carrying our beating hearts the Choo Choo TRAIN
Okay, so the chorus is also going to bonetown (and to be fair, who can blame them.)
But the really, really sticky bit of the song is the incredibly catchy opening choreography. The dancers start lined up one behind the other kind of crouched down. And as the music kicks in the rise and fall in turn, moving their arms like a steam engine. The dance has been parodied and parodied and parodied some more. It is iconic. If you’ve spent any time watching Japanese media, you’ve probably seen it even if you didn’t realize it at the time.
The fun fun hit the step step only until 1995 for Zoo but their influence lives on in not only EXILE and TRF but also echoes on to dance groups like DA PUMP and performance groups like AAA.