Songoftheday 8/19/13 - Guns that cross the street you never know who you might meet who's in disguise...

Culture Club - "It's A Miracle"
from the album Colour By Numbers (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 8

Today's Song of the Day is by the British new-wave/soul band Culture Club, whose 1983 album Colour By Numbers proved to be their biggest ever, already spawning a #1 single with "Karma Chameleon" along with two top-10 hits in "Church Of The Poison Mind" and "Miss Me Blind". The group then released a fourth single from the set (something they didn't do with their debut) in the carnival-party pop of "It's A Miracle", a track originally titled "It's America" to show their love for the States. The video was like a "greatest scenes" of their previous hit clips played out on a giant Monopoly-like board with drag geishas and tabloids....

While "It's A Miracle" scaled up to the top-10 in their native England, as well as Canada and Ireland (topping out at #2 there), it was the band's first to miss the top-10 (where they would never end up again). It also was a "fast-burner" for a big single, only spending two months in the top-40. I didn't understand it, it was quite a fun record that deserved the MTV play that it got - maybe they took the gender-bending aspect a bit far for the times (which I'm grateful it did). It did manage to make the top-10 on the adult-contemporary (easy-listening) format at #8, proving their stronghold on the mainstream, while also reaching the top-10 on the club chart as a double-A side with "Miss Me Blind".

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Here's the band lipsynching to the song on TV in 1984...

...and better, actually live on their 1984 tour in London...

and more recently from their reunion concert...

Up tomorrow: my 500th "song of the day" so far....where a duo ask her name.