Songoftheday 2/4/16 - I run a comb through my hair and step out in the street, and the city's the color of flame in the mid-summer heat...

"Make Me Lose Control" - Eric Carmen
from the album The Best Of Eric Carmen (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's song of the day comes from pop singer/songwriter Eric Carmen, who had a major resurgence in the late 80s thanks to the movie Dirty Dancing. His contribution to the soundtrack, "Hungry Eyes",  went all the way to #4 on the American top-40 in the winter of 1988. Capitalizing on that success, Eric's label Arista issued his first solo retrospective, which included a new song, "Make Me Lose Control". Written by Carmen with soundtrack guru Dean Pitchford, the mainstream pop nugget had that dash of nostaglia that permeated the Dirty Dancing/Big Chill side of the decade...

"Make Me Lose Control" became Eric's fourth (and last) top-10 pop hit in August of 1988, his second-best showing after his #2 hit "All By Myself" in 1976. The single was his second #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, after "Never Gonna Fall In Love Again" in '76, and stayed there for three weeks. Internationally, the single went top ten in Canada (#2) and Australia (#6), and #18 in New Zealand, while missing the top 75 countdown in the UK.

Later that year Eric submitted a track to the 1988 Olympic tie-in record, "Reason To Try", which made a dent in the pop chart at #87. Eric also joined lesser Mandrell Louise for the theme to the sitcom Growing Pains, "As Long As We Got Each Other", which was a minor hit on the country chart at #51. He's drawn back from the spotlight since, though his music still reaps in the money, like when Celine Dion covered his "All By Myself" for a top-10 hit in 1997.

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Here's Eric performing the song on the Dirty Dancing tour in 1988...

Up tomorrow: a veteran British musician goes with the punches.