LAZY LOU's BOOGIE -- Itsumo Soko ni Kimi ga Ita （いつもそこに君がいた）

Ohhhhh...this brings back some memories to me. I mean, the song is not quite that old but the nostalgic feel is still there nonetheless.

I have mentioned in past articles pertaining to the anime "YAWARA!" that I used to watch the fashionable judo girl on Monday nights on NTV when I was living in Gunma Prefecture for the first number of episodes. And a few of my musical touchstones from my time as a JET teacher came from the opening and ending themes from this particular series: Mariko Nagai's "Miracle Girl", Miki Imai's "Ame ni Kiss no Hanataba wo" and Midori Karashima's "Egao wo Sagashite".

Now, the final ending theme for "YAWARA!" which wrapped up in September 1992 didn't appear until I had already finished my tour of duty and gone back to Canada, and since the folks who created YouTube themselves were probably still embryos, I figured that I must have rented out some videos of the series and found out about "Itsumo Soko ni Kimi ga Ita" (You Were Always There) by LAZY LOU's BOOGIE on my VCR in Toronto.

However, I never bothered to remember the band nor the song title at the time. Still, the song remained with me, especially the part where LOU sang the title. There was something that was fresh and inspiring about the melody which was perfectly appropriate for the character of Yawara Inokuma seeing that she was about to reach her dream of competing in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

With a name like LAZY LOU's BOOGIE, though, I probably should have remembered the band. It first formed in 1990 with its debut single, "Dear Friends", coming out in May 1991. The second and only other single was "Itsumo Soko ni Kimi ga Ita" which came out in April 1992. I guess that warm and fuzzy nostalgic feeling comes from how LOU, who wrote and composed the song, sounded somewhat like Mariko Nagai who performed the first opening theme way back in 1989, and how the music sounded ZARD-like. By the way, the above video has the English translation for the lyrics.

I don't know how the song did on any of the charts, but according to J-Wiki, it managed to sell 150,000 copies with most of the customers being high school students. As for LAZY LOU's BOOGIE, the band broke up at the end of 1992 with LOU starting up a solo career.

Looking at that final set of ending credits above had a bit of electricity going up my creaking spine. I guess those were the days.