Songoftheday 9/1/14 - Spare a little candle save some light for me, figures up ahead movin' in the trees...

Heart "These Dreams"
from the album Heart (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the day comes from the retooled lineup of the arena rock band Heart, whose self-titled "comeback" album of 1985 had already scored back-to-back top-10 pop hits in America with "What About Love" and "Never". For the third release from the project the group did something they haven't before, having guitarist Nancy Wilson sing lead instead of sister Ann on the ballad "These Dreams". Written by Elton John's lyricist Bernie Taupin along with Martin Page (who had just topped the pop charts with Starship's recording of his "We Built This City"), the ballad was a big softening of their sound from their 70s days....

Twenty years after the release of their first hit single, "These Dreams" became Heart's first pop #1 hit in March of 1986. The record also crossed over to the Mainstream Rock (#2) and the Adult Contemporary radio charts in Billboard magazine, the latter giving them their first and only #1 hit. Internationally, while the song went to #6 in Canada, and #3 in France, at first the ballad floundered in Britain, landing at #62 on the singles chart on its initial release. However in 1988 the record was re-issued as a "double-A-side" with "Never", and climbed to #8 in the UK then.

"These Dreams" solidified Heart's stature as the big America pop/rock band of the mid-80's with this record, all the more important being led by two women. But after that, their hard-rocking days are well over for at least a while.

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Here's Heart performing live in 1994...

And again from their appearance on MTV Unplugged...

Moving ahead to 2002's tour...

and a particularly sweet version with bluegrass queen Alison Krauss from 2010...

Up tomorrow: a Police-man goes after the Bolsheviks.