TUBE -- Kitto Dokoka de（きっと どこかで）

 

Early this morning at the most unripe hour of 6:30 am Eastern Daylight Time (7:30 pm Japan Standard Time), NHK via Jme broadcast the semi-annual episode of "Akashiya Kohaku"（明石家紅白）, hosted by Kansai comedian Sanma Akashiya（明石家さんま） and populated by singers and bands for nearly 90 minutes of hijinks and performances. Among the guests was the summer band TUBE. I haven't really seen Nobuteru Maeda（前田亘輝）and company really chat it up all that much in a long time, so it was intriguing to half-jokingly admit that not too long after their debut, it was beginning to become very hard to come up with a summer word for their song titles.

Therefore, it wasn't surprising that TUBE performed this particular song (oh, so I think...was feeling groggy) on "Akashiya Kohaku". "Kitto Dokoka de" (Somewhere for Sure) was the band's 28th single from August 1998. Even the J-Wiki description for the song mentions that none of their usual go-to words for titles including "summer", "beach", "ocean" and "sun" pop up in this one (although I'm fairly sure that their non-single album tracks have also had no overt connection with summer in the titles), and frankly although the usual big-bang chorus that Maeda sings out is still there along with the wailing guitar, "Kitto Dokoka de" doesn't really sound like a summer-specific tune.

With lyrics by Maeda and melody by Michiya Haruhata（春畑道哉）, it hit No. 2 on Oricon, going Platinum. By the end of the year, it was the 57th-ranked single for 1998. Not only was it also a track on TUBE's 19th original album "Blue Reef" which was released in June 1999, but it became the theme song for the 1998 Fuji-TV drama "Sekai de Ichiban Papa ga Suki"（世界で一番パパが好き...I Love Papa More Than Anyone Else）, ironically starring Sanma himself.