Kome Kome Club -- Kimi ga Iru Dake de （君がいるだけで）

(cover version)

Had no idea that this would be the biggest-selling J-Pop single of the 1990s, especially with some of the rankings powerhouses during that decade such as Southern All Stars, Namie Amuro, B'z, SMAP, etc. Not that I ever considered Kome Kome Club（米米クラブ）a one-hit wonder by any means; they've had so many hits (my favourite being 1994's kinetic "Abracadabra"), and their concerts could give SAS a run for their money.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm27807542

I heard "Kimi ga Iru Dake de"(Just by You Being Here) for the first time in a long while last night, and a shiver went up my spine as I heard the intro. It was like meeting an old friend again after so long. And like an old friend, my mood just ascended....after the busy week I've had, it needed a good deal of ascending. I'd first heard it back in the year of its release...May 1992, to be exact....when it was used as the theme song for the Fuji-TV drama, "Sugao no Mama de"（素顔のままで...Just the Way You Are) starring a recovered Akina Nakamori and actress Narumi Yasuda as two initially clashing women who become the closest of friends. It was basically the Japanese re-telling of the Hollywood movie "Beaches" which starred Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey.

According to J-Wiki, K2C's 13th single was the song that changed the band from being an underground cult fave to one of J-Pop's premier outfits, something that I don't quite agree with, since I think their 10th single, "Roman Hiko" (1990) didn't exactly slouch in sales and popularity on the mainstream level. But going back to "Kimi ga Iru Dake de", the song has such a sunny disposition that it sounds more appropriate to play it during broad daylight when compared to their more evening fare of funk and dance stuff. The single was also a track on the band's 8th album, "Octave" released in June 1992. The album was also a winner, hitting the No. 1 mark and selling close to 2 million copies.

Written and composed by the band itself with Tatsuya 'Carl Smoky' Ishii （石井竜也)at the lead, the song was at No. 1 for a combined 6 weeks, and would join songs like Akira Terao's （寺尾聡）"Ruby no Yubiwa" and Kazumasa Oda's （小田和正）"Love Story wa Totsuzen Ni" (both already profiled) as the No. 1 song for its year with just a hair under 3 million discs in sales. In fact, in the history of Oricon, "Kimi ga Iru Dake de" is the 5th-highest selling single. Critical accolades also came in the form of a Grand Prize in the Pop and Rock genre of the Japan Record Awards for that year.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9811094

So, of course, NHK came knocking. Kome Kome Club made its appearance to do the song to rousing applause. Interestingly enough, the song was originally written not as a television show theme song but as a musical gift paying tribute to the wedding of Ishii's sister, Minako, and Flash Kaneko, both members of the band.

Kome Kome Club -- Kimi ga Iru Dake