Songoftheday 2/21/14 - I thought I knew you well but all this time I could never tell, I let you get away haunts me every night and every day...

Foreigner - "That Was Yesterday"
from the album Agent Provocateur (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #12 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10

Today's Song of the Day is by the arena-rock group Foreigner, who went a bit soft and scored the biggest hit of their career with "I Want To Know What Love Is". For its follow-up they picked up the pace just a tad for the midtempo rocker from Lou Gramm and Mick Jones, "That Was Yesterday". With the synths more prominent than the guitar, it's apparent the guys were shooting for pop airplay...

"That Was Yesterday" became the second single from the band's Agent Provocateur album to reach the top-20 on the pop chart in May of 1985, while scaling to #4 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. The record was "light" enough to even make the adult-contemporary (or "easy-listening") list at #24. It was a little less successful internationally, but still managed to make the top 40 in Canada, Britain, and Germany.

It's one of those enjoyable but non-essential rock songs of the 80s that you won't necessarily clamor for but won't turn off.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Here's a clip of the band actually performing live with the song in 1985...

...and again in 1993...

There's also an extended dance mix of the song, though it failed to make the club charts, it's pretty decent...

Finally, here's the band with replacement lead singer Kelly Harsen in 2010..

A jeopardized rocker becomes more fortunate.