Songoftheday 3/16/14 - Oh thinkin' about all our younger years, there was only you and me we were young and wild and free...

Bryan Adams - "Heaven"
from the album Reckless (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's Song of the Day is by Canadian rock singer/songwriter/guitarist Bryan Adams, whose fourth album Reckless was just getting going at the beginning of 1985, churning out a top-10 hit with "Run To You" and a follow-up that just missed that mark, "Somebody". For the next single Bryan released a track that had already seen a lot of airplay on rock and some pop stations, the ballad "Heaven". Originally recorded for the soundtrack to the Christopher Atkins stripper movie A Night In Heaven, the song was played heavily on my local WPST station in Princeton, and got enough nationwide airtime to climb to #9 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. Over a year later, added to the Reckless album, the song broke out bigtime on pop stations, and was timed just right for high school proms everywhere...

"Heaven" became Bryan's first #1 pop hit in the U.S. in June of 1985, while surprisingly only climbing to #12 on the adult contemporary (or "easy-listening") radio chart (those stations were still luke-warm on rock songs). The track did also climb back up to #27 on its second trip on the Mainstream Rock chart in Billboard. Internationally, while the single went top-10 in countries like Sweden and Spain, it stalled out at #38 in Britain and even in his native Canada it stopped one rung short of the top-10.

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There also was an alternate video made for the song, on another stage but without the audience...

In 2001, Spanish eurodance DJ Sammy teamed up with German trance producer Yanou for a club remake of the song featuring vocals by Dutch singer Do (Dominique van Hulst). Somehow the single caught like fire around the world, and went to #1 in England (way better than the original), while climbing to #8 on Billboard's Hot 100 pop chart, #21 on the adult contemporary radio chart, and #30 on the dance club play list the following year. It also reached the top-10 in Australia, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and most strikingly, Bryan's own Canada, where the remake made it to #7.

Singer and actor (and fave of mine) John Barrowman also recorded "Heaven" for his album in 2007 Another Side...

When Bryan did CMT's Crossroads show in 2009, he brought in Jason Aldean for the program...

That same year, R&B duo Nina Sky interpolated the DJ Sammy version for their single "Beautiful People"...

In 2010, indie-rock singer Brandi Carlile did a very sweet and intimate version of "Heaven"...

And YouTube cover stars Boyce Avenue recorded "Heaven" with guest Megan Nicole, and racked up more than 20 million views of their video...

 Last year, Kentucky's Jimmy Rose, who finished third on the eighth season of America's Got Talent, had his first "audition" country-fied performance with the song...

 Finally, let's turn back to Bryan with a concert performance in Ireland...

and an acoustic version for MTV Unplugged in 1997...

...and finally, the B-side of the single, the non-album track "Diana", alluding to the new Princess of Wales, climbed the American rock chart to #21...

Up tomorrow: A soul charmer keeps on waiting at the abode.