Songfacts®:

• Sapporo is a port city on the southwest part of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. When The Manic Street Preachers toured Japan in 1993 they played a gig there. This song is a reverie of a magical moment for the band, when they felt they could pretty much do anything.
• Singer James Dean Bradfield told Mojo the wonderful time has sadly disappeared from his mind, but lyricist Nicky Wire "can still sense it and smell it and touch it." The only way Bradfield can "touch that experience again is by singing it."
• The Manic's gig took place in Sapporo on October 22, 1993. Though the Japanese city's winters are cold and very snowy, it was unlikely to have snowed when the band was there. Rather, Wire's lyrics are dreamlike as he casts his mind back to their trip to Japan.
  
  I'm walking on my own it's 1993
  The heavy snow is falling like an angel over me
  I see it all through a video camera filter
  It feels so real like cheap golden glitter
  
  Bradfield said: "The start is like a hollow, just the voice and a floating, ethereal wisp of something calmer and then it explodes into something that's full of hope and discovery. We haven't been to Sapporo since then, but I'm keeping my eye on going back there, and having one last hurray."
• This is the opening track of The Ultra Vivid Lament. The Manic Street Preachers recorded the album at Rockfield Studios in rural Wales as well as their own Door To The River HQ with producer Dave Eringa. A longtime collaborator of the band, Eringa's association with the Manics dates back to their first single, "Motown Junk," when he had tea-making duties. He has acted as the band's producer at various times over their career, and for The Ultra Vivid Lament, he oversaw the whole album.
• When Nicky Wire turned 50, he realized his short-term memory had deteriorated. "I can't even remember if I had a shower this morning - but I can recall everything from 1993," he told Mojo magazine.
  
  Wire added he "can literally smell the hairspray" that he and guitarist Richie Edwards used back then, or James Dean Bradfield's "insane see-through blouse." With that in mind he wrote "Still Snowing In Sapporo" in a really romantic way. "At that point, we were completely on our own - there was no kinship with any other band in the universe," Wire said.