Songoftheday 7/23/13 - Where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods, where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds...

Bonnie Tyler - "Holding Out For A Hero"
from the albums Footloose (Original Soundtrack) (1984) and Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #34 (three weeks)
Weeks in the top-40: 4

Today's Song of the Day was one of the six top-40 hits from the 1984 movie Footloose's original soundtrack, sung by Welshwoman Bonnie Tyler. Tyler, who had her big break the year prior with the Jim Steinman-penned "Total Eclipse of the Heart", went to the man again for another epic single. "Holding Out For A Hero" featured Meat Loaf backup singer Ellen Foley and the E Street Band's Roy Bittan....

"Holding Out For A Hero" became Tyler's third and latest top-40 hit in April of 1984. That same year, she would also release a song from the re-release of the black-and-white classic film Metropolis, "Here She Comes", which made it to #76, and a year later would place a rung lower with a song from her album Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire (which also included "Holding Out"), "If You Were A Woman and I Were A Man", an attempt to recreate a smash with the drama of her former hits.

Internationally, the single barely made the charts in her native Britain, placing at #96, until a year later, where a re-release brought it to #2 on the UK chart and #1 in neighboring Ireland. It would also reappear on the chart in 1991 in Britain as well.

The nineties saw Bonnie more successful on continental Europe than in the UK or the States, having a bunch of hits including "Bitterblue" which went top-10 in a few countries. This past spring Bonnie represented England for the Eurovision song contest with "Believe In Me", which didn't get her much love even in her own country, stalling at #93 on the chart.

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In 1985, the short-lived TV series Cover-up featuring male pin-up Jon-Erik Hexum used the song covered by Hi-NRG singer E.G. Daily (his girlfriend) for the credits...

Ten years later, Imogen Heap's old band Frou Frou took on the song for the Shrek 2 soundtrack, which I liked 10x more than the movie...

On the same soundtrack is another version by Jennifer Saunders (of Absolutely Fabulous)...

This past season the Glee cast covered the song (though by now nobody notices anymore)...

...and here's Bonnie singing it live...

...There was a 12" Dance remix done by "Jellybean" Benitez, though it missed the club charts in Billboard...

and finally, I cannot leave this without what I think is by far the greatest drag queen entrance of all time...

Damn that gurl must be a cat because she just lipsynched for all nine of her lives.

Up tomorrow: Punk girl goes soft for the kid.