Songoftheday 3/26/13 - 2 O'Clock this morning if she should come a-calling I couldn't dream of turning her away...

Huey Lewis & The News - "Heart And Soul"
from the album Sports (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day is by the dapper pop bar-band Huey Lewis & The News, who broke through on pop radio in 1982 with their second album, Picture This, which scored two top-40 hits with "Do You Believe In Love" and "I Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do". The band was ready with their next album, but due to conflict within their record company, Chrysalis, they held out until the fall of 1983 to release Sports. The first single, "Heart And Soul", picked up nicely where they left off - written by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, the guys behind Toni Basil's #1 hit "Mickey", the semi-agressive guitar and jangly percussion found a welcome home on the radio amidst all the cold new wave, and with the band producing the album, it brought out a cohesiveness that felt like it was a real band playing and not a backing track around a singer...

"Heart And Soul" climbed the American pop chart to become their second top-10 hit, as well as topping the rock radio charts as well. It would eventually become a modest hit around the world, reaching the top-40 in Australia, Germany and Canada, and even peaking in the 60s two years later on the British singles chart. It would be the first of five top-40 hits from the album, one of the big milestones making Sports in the category of Thriller, Purple Rain, and Private Dancer as a classic moment of the 80s.

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Now, Huey Lewis' version wasn't the first recording of the song - and not even the first single. Country/pop band Exile, whose "Kiss You All Over" was written by Chapman & Chinn, released the song as the title track of their 1981 album, and it "bubbled under" Billboard's Hot 100 at #102...

...and here's Huey and the News live in 1984...

Up tomorrow: Swedish choreography monarch is kind of stuck.