Songoftheday 9/26/19 - I heard you crying loud all the way across town, 'cause you been searching for that someone and it's me out on the prowl...

"When I Come Around" - Green Day
from the album Dookie (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #6 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Hot 100 Airplay Top-40: 34

Today's song of the day comes from the punk trio that were starting to make it bigtime on mainstream radio, Green Day. Two of their songs from their album Dookie had reached the top-40 on the airplay component of Billboard magazine's Hot 100 - "Longview" and "Basket Case", but while both of them were also rock radio hits, neither was able to place on the Hot 100 because at the time rules were in place where a song would have to be released as a commercial branded single. A third promoted track, "Welcome To Paradise" climbed to #7 on the Modern Rock chart while peaking at #56 on the Hot 100 Airplay list.

The fourth release to radio from the album would be "When I Come Around", which perfectly meshed the guitar power of punk with the music composition sensibility of pop music (like the early Cars records), which formed a template for many many bands and songs to come after. Written by lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong, the track would bring them to new heights on mainstream radio...

While "When I Come Around" climbed all the way to #6 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 Airplay chart, spending a month at its peak and over eight months in the top-40, since it wasn't released as a proper commercial single in stores it was ineligible to place on the Hot 100 chart proper. However, the song did spend seven weeks at #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock radio chart, as well as taking two weeks at #2 on their Mainstream Rock list. Internationally, "When I Come Around" (released physically everywhere else mostly) peaked at #3 in Canada, #4 in New Zealand, and #7 in Australia, while reaching the top-40 in Denmark (#19), the UK (#27), Sweden (#28), and the Netherlands (#33). A fifth song promoted to radio from Dookie, "She", just missed the airplay top-40 at #41, while hitting #5 on the Modern Rock chart and #18 on the Mainstream rock list.

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Here's Green Day performing on SNL in 1994...