Songoftheday 5/30/18 - In the night I hear you speak, turn around you're in my sleep...
from the album Time, Love & Tenderness (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: did not chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #16 (one week)
Weeks on the Airplay Top-40: 16
Today's song of the day comes from adult-pop superstar Michael Bolton, whose Time, Love & Tenderness album had spun off four huge hits in America with "Missing You Now", "Love Is A Wonderful Thing", "Time, Love & Tenderness", and the #1 Grammy-winning cover of "When A Man Loves A Woman". Instead of issuing a fifth single in the States, where record companies were starting to test the idea of promoting non-physical singles to radio to boost sales of albums, the album track "Steel Bars" was promoted to pop and soft-rock radio. Written by Bolton with the unlikely partner of folk-rock icon Bob Dylan, the uptempo song nevertheless got as much airplay as "Missing You Now" did, and did keep the album on the charts for a bit longer, fulfilling its purpose. It sure does not seem like a Dylan arrangement in any stretch of the word, but there's some of his touches in the lyrics from his mid-80s work...
While "Steel Bars" wasn't eligible to be on Billboard's pop Hot 100 chart since it wasn't a physical single (a rule that eventually went away in 1998), it did climb to the top 20 on their Airplay chart in June of 1992. The song also made it to #7 on their Adult Contemporary radio tally as well. Internationally, where it was released separately to a healthy singles market, the track peaked at #10 in Canada, and made the top-40 in the UK (#17) and Ireland (#22).
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Here's Michael in concert behind the album performing "Steel Bars"...
In 2011, Bolton re-recorded "Steel Bars" for his second duets album Gems with rock prodigy Orianthi...
Finally, Bolton again in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London...
Up tomorrow: Beauty queen is here One Night Only.
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