Songoftheday 6/20/13 - : I been working so hard keep punching my card, Eight hours for what? Oh tell me what I got...

Kenny Loggins - "Footloose" 
from the album Footloose (Original Soundtrack) (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16

Today's Song of the Day is by the 80's king of the soundtrack hits, Kenny Loggins, who started out the decade with a top-10 hit from the comedy Caddyshack, "I'm Alright". After that, Kenny released his fourth studio album, High Adventure, which spun off three non-soundtrack top-40 hits with the power-collab with Journey's Steve Perry on "Don't Fight It", the Michael McDonald-assisted soft-rock of "Heart To Heart", and the children's school anthem "Welcome To Heartlight". After that, Loggins was commissioned to work on the soundtrack to the teen-angst-through-dance movie Footloose, and the first of his two contributions to the soundtrack was the title track, co-written by Loggins with Broadway star-turned-Oscar-winning songwriter Dean Pitchford. "Footloose" broke through the new-wave din with a simple bassline to guitar strum to synths that has invaded the playlists of exercising people everywhere...

"Footloose" connected with the American public in a huge way, and not only was it the singer/songwriter's first and only #1 pop hit to date, it began a streak where six of the soundtrack's cuts made the top-40 (while a seventh "bubbled under" the Hot 100). It also went to #1 in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and top-10 in Britain. It also spent two weeks at #2 on the American rock radio chart in Billboard as well.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


When Footloose was remade in 2011, country singer Blake Shelton took on the duties of reprising the theme song, with which he reached the lower half of the pop and country chart....

...and not to let a classic song die, the cast of Glee covered "Footloose" in season 4, though missed the chart (like most of season 4's efforts)....

..and finally, here's Kenny himself live at Live Aid performing "Footloose"...

Up tomorrow: A Scot's just about done.