Songoftheday 11/15/17 - In a time where the sun descends alone I ran a long long way from home, to find a heart that's made of stone...

"Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave)" - Roxette
from the album Joyride (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's song of the day comes from the Swedish pop duo Roxette, whose album Joyride had already scored Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson their fourth #1 hit in America with the title track. Their second release from the record, "Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave)", was written by Gessle and sung by Fredrikssen, with that combination of high romantic drama and catchy toe-tapping melody that marked another band from that country, ABBA...

"Fading Like A Flower" became Roxette's seventh top-40 pop hit in the U.S., and their last to reach the top ten. The song also climbed to #5 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Canada (#2), Switzerland (#3), Ireland (#4), Norway (#4), Finland (#4), Germany (#5), Belgium (#5), Austria (#6), Australia (#7), the Netherlands (#7), and their native Sweden (#5). It also got to #12 in both Italy and the UK.

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Here's Per and Marie singing live to track on Japanese TV to promote the single in 1991...

 Next up is Roxette performing live in concert in Switzerland that same year...

...and again, for their acoustic appearance on MTV Unplugged in 1993...

In 2005, British dance group the Dancing DJs reworked "Fading Like A Flower", and the "filtered vocal mix" result reached the top-20 in the UK (#18), Ireland (#13), and Finland (#13), though it stopped one notch short of the top-40 in their Swedish home...

and finally, the group in concert in 2012...

Up tomorrow: Glam metal band doesn't take time to mourn.