Songoftheday 1/26/15 - Love I get so lost sometimes, days pass and this emptiness fills my heart...

"In Your Eyes" - Peter Gabriel
from the album So (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #26 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 7

Today's Song of the Day comes from progressive rock veteran Peter Gabriel, who in 1986 found himself a proper pop star as his single "Sledgehammer" ended of topping the American singles chart in the summer. For his next single he toned it a bit down with a romantic and subliminally tribal love song. "In Your Eyes", written by the artist who produced the track with Daniel Lanois and bassist Bill Laswell, and featured Senegalese treasure Youssou N'Dour on back-up vocals as well as Manu Katché from the Ivory Coast providing the hypnotic percussion.

"In My Eyes" became the second top-40 hit from So in October of 1986, as well as earning Peter his third #1 Mainstream Rock radio hit in Billboard magazine. Internationally, while the song wasn't released as a single in his native Britain, it was a top-40 hit in Canada and a minor one in Australia and New Zealand.

Three years later "In My Eyes" found a new audience courtesy of the John Cusack movie Say Anything, and reappeared on the Hot 100 pop chart in America, coming one notch away from being a double-top-40-hit at #41. But in return the song was proven to probably be his most widely beloved song despite its chart performance.

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The alternate video for the song (promoted during the Say Anything run) had Peter live on stage, with Youssou getting his star moment justifiably...

And again, in his flawless Secret World tour in 1993 with help from Paula Cole...

Nancy Wilson from Heart included the song in her solo live album in 1999...

In 2001, singer/songwriter Jeffrey Gaines released a cover of "In Your Eyes", and went to #22 on the Adult Top-40 pop radio format chart in Billboard with it...