Songoftheday 8/23/14 - A Salvation Army band played and the children drank lemonade, and the morning lasted all day...

The Dream Academy - "Life In A Northern Town"
from the album The Dream Academy (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's Song of the Day is by the Dream Academy, a British trio that with a little help from Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, who co-produced their self-titled debut album, made a big splash in the mid-80's with the dreamy-pop nugget "Life In A Northern Town". Written by lead singer/guitarist Nick Laird-Clowes and keyboardist Gilbert Gabriel, the song was a tribute to the late indie-folk artist Nick Drake, who lost his battle with addiction and depression in 1974. With a rush of orchestral flourishes behind Nick's fragile Lennon-esque lead and the African-style chorus it led to, the single was a welcome change of pace from the beeps and bloops of new wave out of Britain. And where else are you going to find the English horn played so prominently?

"Life In A Northern Town" became the Dream Academy's first and only top-10 pop hit in America in February of 1986. The record also crossed over to both the Adult Contemporary (#2) and Mainstream Rock (#7) radio charts in Billboard magazine. Internationally, while the single reached the top-10 in Canada, Australia, and Ireland, it surprisingly stopped at #15 on the British singles chart (considering how "English" the record sounds). Since then, "Life In A Northern Town" with its classic acoustic sound has aged much better than its electronic contemporaries.

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There was an alternative version of the video released for American television...

Ten years later the English dance music act Dario G interpolated the chants from the record into their classic club anthem "Sunchyme", which went all the way to #2 on the British singles chart in 1997 and topped the American dance club play list in Billboard soon after...

In 2008 country duo Sugarland teamed up with vocal group Little Big Town and singer Jake Owen to collaborate on a cover of the single, which climbed to #28 on the country chart and barely missed the top-40 at #43 on the Hot 100...

Up tomorrow: Going to church to top the charts. Hallelujah indeed.