Songoftheday 4/15/16 - Something leaves me speechless each time that you approach, each time you glide right through me as if I was a ghost...

"A Word In Spanish" - Elton John
from the album Reggie Strikes Back (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #19 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 6

Today's song of the day comes from pop icon Elton John, who landed the highest-charting American pop hit of the 80's with "I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That" in 1988. The second single from the Reggie Strikes Back album was the proto-"Take a Bow", "A Word In Spanish". Written by Elton with longtime collaborating lyricist Bernie Taupin, the mid-tempo ballad allowed him to don a budget-busting array of fashion amongst a bevy of scantily-clad Latin boys....

"A Word In Spanish" became the second top-40 pop hit from Reggie Strikes Back in the U.S. in November of 1988. The song also went all the way to #4 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy-listening") radio chart. Internationally, the song did well in Canada, making the top ten (#10), as well as #19 in Switzerland (it wasn't put out as a single in Elton's native Britain in favor of the track "Town Of Plenty").

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And here's Elton performing the song live on TV in 1988...

...and lastly, audio from a concert in 1988 that I sadly couldn't get to see in Chicago...

Up tomorrow: Rap requirements for a duet with this just-passed hip-hop legend.