"Butterfly" is a wedding song by Japanese musician

Kaela Kimura is a Japanese pop rock singer, lyricist, fashion model and television presenter. Career Born in Adachi, Tokyo, Japan to a Japanese mother and British father, Kimura started working as a model in 2002 for the Japanese magazine ''Seventeen (Jap ...

, released as a digital single on June 1, 2009, roughly a month before her fifth album, '' Hocus Pocus''. It was extremely successful, reaching downloads of over 2,000,000 just over six months after its release. It is Kimura's most successful single digitally. Columbia released a special instrumental version of the song on February 14, 2010.

Writing and inspiration

The song is a ballad, arranged with a harpsichord and piano backing. As the song progresses, a band arrangement with electric guitars and drums is introduced. Also present in the song are the sounds of church bells, a children's choir and a church organ. The lyrics describe a newly wed bride as a butterfly, who is "more wonderful today than any other time before" who "flaps white wings, together towards happiness." The verses deal with how the person writing the song met the wedding bride so long ago, and describes the wedding ceremony, and how happy the bride is. Kaela Kimura wrote the song for a close friend, who wanted her to sing a song for her and her husband at their wedding. She wrote the song in collaboration with Akira Suemitsu (

Suemitsu & the Suemith Suemitsu & the Suemith (スエミツアンドザスエミス) is a Japanese solo project headed by Suemitsu Atsushi (末光篤). He performs piano and vocals for the project. Suemitsu is probably best known for performing the opening theme and ...

), who wrote the music. Kimura wrote the song's lyrics like a letter addressed to her friend, and performed the song at her friend's birthday on

Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, thr ...

in 2009.

Promotion

The song was chosen as a commercial song for wedding information magazine Zexy, out of 200 potential other songs submitted to the company. The commercial began airing in mid April 2009, however it did not list the singer of the song initially. Kimura was first announced as the singer of the commercial to the press on 30 May 2009, when she performed the song as a surprise gift at the wedding reception of two Kaela Kimura fans, at Shinyokohama's International Hotel. On December 31, 2009, Kimura performed the song at the annual New Year's Song contest,

Kōhaku Uta Gassen , more commonly known simply as ''Kōhaku'', is an annual New Year's Eve television special produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It is broadcast live simultaneously on television and radio, nationally and internationally by the NHK net ...

Music video

The music video was shot by director Takeshi Nakamura with help from company Nicographics. It features Kimura against a stylised outdoor background, in the style of a children's television show. As she walks along, a real butterfly flies around her, and she passes blue cut-outs of different animals, such as horses and rabbits. Kimura interacts with the animal representations and walks to a cut-out of a modern city. After she passes the city, she finds an

A-frame An A-frame is a basic structure designed to bear a load in a lightweight economical manner. The simplest form of an A-frame is two similarly sized beams, arranged in an angle of 45 degrees or less, attached at the top, like an uppercase lette ...

log cabin, opens the door and a progression of pink animals come out of the door. The blue and pink animals find each other and fall in love.

Commercial success

The song was extremely successful digitally. Within two months, the song had been downloaded over 1,000,000 times. At the end of 2009, it was the second most downloaded song of the year on iTunes in Japan, and the second most downloaded at Mora.jp After Kimura sung the song at the annual New Year's Song contest,

, the song saw a great spike in sales. Before the performance, the song had been being downloaded roughly 1,500-2,000 times per day, which spiked to 40,000 times per day afterwards. Because of this, on 5 January, the song had been downloaded a total of 2,000,000 times. This also caused "Butterfly" to reach the #1 spot on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart for two weeks. As of May 2010, the '' RIAJ'' had certified the song as being purchased more than 1,000,000 times on cellphones, and more than 500,000 times on PCs. The song has also been downloaded more than 1,000,000 times as a ringtone.

Track listing

Chart rankings

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butterfly (Kaela Kimura Song) Kaela Kimura songs 2009 singles RIAJ Digital Track Chart number-one singles Japanese-language songs Songs about marriage Songs written by Kaela Kimura 2009 songs