Songoftheday 6/29/14 - Baby, don't understand why we can't just hold on to each other's hands?

Mr. Mister - "Broken Wings"
from the album Welcome To The Real World (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15

Today's Song of the Day is by the pop/rock band Mr. Mister, who came together in Los Angeles under former Phoenix natives Steve George and Richard Page, the latter who was a well-known studio musician who had worked on a lot of the soft-pop hits of the first half of the 80's. They released their first album, I Wear The Face, in 1984, and scored a minor hit with the single "Hunters Of The Night". Although Page was offered lead singer gigs in both Chicago and Toto (both of whom were going through transitions), he kept going with Mr. Mister.

After changing their sound from the new wave of their first album to a more expansive western-pop of Welcome To The Real World, the band released "Broken Wings" as the first single from their second effort. Based on a Lebanese love story written in the beginning of the 20th century, "Broken Wings" featured Page's bass hook front and center...

"Broken Wings" not only became Mr. Mister's first top-40 hit, the single went all the way to #1 in December of 1985. It also was able to straddle genres, being soft enough to reach #3 on the adult contemporary radio chart, while remaining cool enough to make it to #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart in Billboard. Internationally the record was a huge success, topping the chart in Canada, going to #4 in England, and reaching the top-10 in Germany, Australia, and Italy.

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Here's Mr. Mister live on a TV appearance in 1986...