Songoftheday 8/25/18 - Yesterday you came to lift me up as light as straw and brittle as a bird, today I weigh less than a shadow on the wall just one more whisper of a voice unheard...
from the album The One (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #23 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9
Today's song of the day is from Elton John, who had returned to the American pop top ten in the fall of 1992 with the title track from his album The One. The second single from the record would be one of Elton's most personal and emotional songs, based on inspiration from a young person in his life. That person was Ryan White, who had contracted the HIV virus from a transfusion, and had subsequently succumbed to AIDS in 1990. Also, the death of Freddie Mercury was fresh when Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics about a father losing a son, which Elton then set to music. The result was a guaranteed tearjerker that was released as a benefit for his Elton John AIDS Foundation...
"The Last Song" became the second American pop top-40 hit from The One in December of 1992. The song spent two weeks at #2 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. Internationally, the single spent four weeks at #7 in Canada, and reached the top-40 in the UK (#21), New Zealand (#27), Ireland (#28), Australia (#32), Belgium (#35), and the Netherlands (#38).
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Here's Elton playing "The Last Song" in concert in Los Angeles in 1994...
The song was used in the final scene of the miniseries And The Band Played On, which dealt with the AIDS crisis..
an finally, Elton appearing on Arsenio Hall to promote the single...
Up tomorrow: British pop duo are pretty monogamous.
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