Songoftheday 10/10/19 - To understand her you gotta know her deep inside, hear every thought see every dream...
from the albums Don Juan Demarco (Original Soundtrack) (1995) and 18 'Til I Die (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (five weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 20
Today's song of the day comes from Canadian rocker Bryan Adams, who had been softening his tune in the early 1990s and profited from it, scoring a pair of big #1 hits with ballads from movie soundtracks, with the massive "(Every Thing I Do) I Do It For You" from Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves in 1991, and then the "tri-et" with Rod Stewart and Sting on "All For Love" from the Three Musketeers revamp in the winter of 1994. The following year, Bryan recorded another love song for a film inspired by a character of fables, with "Have You Really Ever Loved A Woman?". Recorded for the Johnny Depp film Don Juan DeMarco, which also featured Marlon Brando and Faye Dunaway (!), the extra-long title alone gives it away that it's a "Mutt" Lange co-write, while the strings and Spanish touches are courtesy of composer Michael Kamen, Lange, Kamen, and Adams also co-wrote "All For Love" and "I Do It For You" as well, and why won't they let the formula work a third time? Admittedly, this is the most palatable and least "cheesy" of the bunch, with the flamenco flair offering something different (for him)...
"Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?" became Bryan's fourth #1 pop hit in America (all of them have been from movies including "Heaven" from the Christopher Atkins skinflick) in June of 1995. The song also spent five weeks at #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. Internationally, the single topped the charts in Canada, Australia, Austria, and Switzerland. It also reached the top ten in Belgium (#2), the Netherlands (#2), Iceland (#2), Germany (#3), Ireland (#3), Denmark (#3), the UK (#4), France (#5), Norway (#5), Sweden (#6), Finland (#7), New Zealand (#9), and Italy (#10). "Have You Ever..." was nominated for an Oscar and a Grammy Award for best original song from a movie, losing both to Vanessa Williams' "Colors Of The Wind" from Pocahontas, and also got a Grammy nod for Best Pop Male Vocal, which Seal took for "Kiss From A Rose" (from the Batman Forever film, proving how big soundtracks were that year).
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's Bryan at Wembley Stadium in London in 1996...
...and at the Oscars that same year...
...and on stage in Chile in 2007, with the audience singing every word along...
Next up is his show at Slane Castle in 2009...
and lastly, in Argentina in 2017...
Up tomorrow: A complete R&B vocal group ask "are you blind?".
Comments