Songoftheday 11/16/18 - Like a river flows surely to the sea, darling so it goes some things are meant to be...
from the album Promises & Lies and Sliver: Music From The Motion Picture (1993)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (seven weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 23
Today's song of the day comes from the British reggae band UB40, whose 1989 album Labour Of Love II had landed them two top ten pop hits in America with remakes of the Temptations' "The Way You Do The Things You Do" and Al Green's "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)". In 1993, the group returned with their tenth album Promises & Lies, which was almost all original material save for one cover. But that cover ended up being released as the first single and becoming the biggest hit of their career. "Can't Help Falling In Love", written by Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, with George David Weiss, was adapted from a French love ditty from almost the time of the French Revolution. But in the modern era, it was best known from being performed by the King himself, Elvis Presley, who included it in his Blue Hawaii movie. It reached #2 on the American pop chart and spent six weeks on top of Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format list...
UB40 took that delicate and emotionally somber number and pumped it up with a bright production that could feel comfortable at a parade in New Orleans...
UB40's version of "Can't Help Falling In Love" became their second #1 pop hit in America in July of 1993. The record also came within a notch of reaching the top ten on both the Modern Rock and Adult Contemporary charts in Billboard magazine (#11). Internationally, the single topped the charts in the UK, Australia, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, New Zealand, and Finland. It also went to #2 in Germany, Ireland, and Switzerland, #4 in Norway, and #5 in France.
It would be their last song to reach the pop top-40 in the U.S. - follow-up single "Higher Ground" went to #14 on the Modern Rock chart, but stalled at #45 on the pop Hot 100. That song did much better overseas, getting to #8 in the UK and New Zealand, and #9 in the Netherlands and Ireland. The album scored three more top-40 hits in Britain: "Bring Me Your Cup" (#24), "C'est La Vie" (#37), and "Reggae Music" (#28). But by the time of the next album, Guns In The Ghetto in 1997, America had left the band behind, although track "Tell Me If It's True", with a little help of its placement on the Speed 2: Cruise Control movie, got to #14 in the UK. Even another covers release, Labour Of Love III, couldn't earn American attention, although in their homeland they landed their most recent top 10 hit with "Come Back Darling" (#10) in 1998.
The band was running on fumes in the new millenium already, with only a remake of the Manhattan's soul ballad "Kiss and Say Goodbye" from their 2005 album Who You Fighting For? reaching the British top-40 at #19. In 2008, lead singer Ali Campbell left the group, who eventually replaced him with his own brother Duncan. Meanwhile, Ali carried on with an off-brand version of UB40 with former members Astro and Mickey Virtue. The remaining members' most recent studio album, Getting Over The Storm, was released in 2013 and got to #29 on the British albums chart.
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Here's the band performing the song live in Montreaux in 2002...
And in concert later that decade...
And finally, Ali and the band with full orchestra at the Night of The Proms...
Up tomorrow: Electro-pop icons have some misgivings.
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