The original post’s link is down and the official YouTube video of the song is edited. Boo. Here’s an unofficial version of the full song I found.
Wow! Great! Really great! But I think this song is a cover… But I think the title is not appropriated, because there isn’t a guitar… maybe “while my shamisen gently weeps” or “while my koto gently weeps”… 
a cover version of an old song by the beatles it is and while I don’t have the kubo cd yet it says 5:23 on the track listing of the cd at amazon so does sound or look like the official sound track on cd does include the solo and improvisations too . . .
actually I also covered it in a shorter clip a couple of minutes ago . . .
I don’t know why, but the shamisen sounds strange… I think it’s because you’re far from the microphone or who for it
Is there also an instrumental version (without vocals) of this song?
HI Sakura, Well I felt the same actually. I think my Shamisen sounds a bit distant in the recording. But the thrill of being on a soundtrack is so big that I dont care too much. In my own recordings I always make sure to put the Shamisen upfront. I dont think the sound mixing crew was very familiar with how to mix Shamisen.
But the recording is from someone called B H…
sakura the clip shows me playing on the shamisen phone app that I made and also I recorded it with my old and crap tablet so overall I would say that clip is not meant to be a serious cover version . . .
So it’s a virtual shamisen?
yes it is a virtual shamisen so to speak and it covers about the first half of the neck up to finger position 10 on each of the strings . . . also I will release an update later this week to further improve it a bit I am really sorry that you can’t try it out on your apple iphone as the app is and will be only for android phones …
But I can use a virtual shamisen in my computer!
Jiuta, as for now…
I’m searching for a tsugaru kontakt library, but no one is released
Finally got around to seeing this movie and it was super exciting to see Kevin’s name appear at least twice in the credits
Kyle is in the credits also but I think he was too modest so far to share with the world at large a comment about the background of that???
Yeah! Kyle Abbott , Hibiki ichikawa and Kevin Kmetz all contributed to Kubo ! It’s practically a Bachido film!
Excellent.
I love when there are covers with traditional Japanese instruments!
Hi, Kevin. I did not know you’re on that soundtrack! Wow, big congrats and stuff!
Hey Chet! Thank you. Haven’t heard from you in a while. How’ve you been?
Hi Kevin Sensei, it has been a while! This Christmas we went to Universal Studio Hollywood and stumbled across Kubo exhibit. The art and Shamisen model intrigued us, so we bought DVD. Today we watched it at home and I heavily wondered who played Shamisen…and found Kyle Abbott’s article and this, Congratulations !!!
Sorry I didn’t know this any sooner, life’s been busy with work and band, but I just got my Shamisen (from Issaquah, remember?) reskinned (west cost dryness is tough on dog skin) on my business trip to Japan and started playing again.
I can definitely hear you distinctly where the monkey tells the story. I’ll buy the soundtrack tomorrow. I hope the movie will be shown in Japan soon!!
Oh by the way, I thought fingering and Bachi sabaki were spot on in the movie (I always watch this sort of this thing in movies/amines), thanks to Kyle Abbott’s help to the aninators, as he mentioned in his article.