Songoftheday 1/25/17 - It's a human sign when things go wrong, when the scent of her lingers and temptation's strong...
from the album Sleeping With The Past (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #18 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9
Today's song of the day is by Elton John, whose album Sleeping With The Past had already earned him a top-20 pop hit in the U.S. with "Healing Hands" in the fall of 1989. The second single from the set was for many (including me) his best of the latter half of the decade. "Sacrifice", written by Elton with his longtime lyrical collaborator Bernie Taupin, flourished about the state of a broken relationship where some seek solace in infidelity. As opposed to the usual angry or heartbroken takes on the subject, Elton is rather resigned about it, more observational than judgy...
"Sacrifice" became the second top-20 American pop hit from Sleeping With The Past in March of 1990. The song was a huge hit on Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio, spending four weeks at #3 on the chart in Billboard magazine. Internationally, the single went to #1 for three weeks in France, peaked at #2 in Ireland, Belgium, and Norway, #3 in the Netherlands, and got to #7 in both Australia and New Zealand. In Elton's native Britain, the song originally was only a minor hit at #55, but after a BBC DJ featured the song regularly, it was re-released with "Healing Hands" as a 2-fer single and became Elton's first solo #1 hit, where it stayed for five weeks.
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A year later, on the release of the Elton tribute album Two Rooms, Sinead O'Connor covered Sacrifice, which was still "fresh" at that time, and turned in a performance that was much more vulnerable and delicate...
Here's Elton appearing on MTV's Unplugged in 1990...
and lastly, at Madison Square Garden in 2003 in concert...
Up tomorrow: Soul crooner stays in the present and lands his first top ten hit.
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