1986 (First Trip): All the little snack bars in Japan have the laser karaoke systems...
At one bar we'd go to for other reasons, we called
Matsudate, I think it was the owner's last name, we'd be highly encouraged to sing a song once somebody else decided it was Karaoke time -- "Oh please sing!"
So we'd dutifully check the songbook one more time, only a few of the hundreds of selections would be in English. "I Left my Heart in SanFrancisco", "Jumpin' Jack Frash", "Love Me Tender", etc.
Anyway, a local Public School Vocal Teacher was there one night, and, I suppose, in honor of us visiting Gaijin, chose to sing "My Way" in her most professional voice and broken English, but got more and more emotional as she went through the verses, and was in tears nearly to the state of collapse by the end of the song.
1992 (Second Trip): Found out Mr Matsudate blew his mind out in a car, he didn't notice that the light had changed. Drunk driving, they said.
Ah, that would explain it.
As might this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/07/korean-drummer-kwon-soon-keun_n_1947070.html
and this - scroll to 30 seconds