Songoftheday 2/9/20 - Can you teach me 'bout tomorrow and all the pain and sorrow running free...

"Time" - Hootie & The Blowfish
from the album Cracked Rear View (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 20

Today's song of the day comes from the pop/rock band Hootie & The Blowfish, whose 1994 album Cracked Rear View proved to be one of the biggest debut sets in history, selling millions upon millions and already spinning out three top ten pop hits with "Hold My Hand", the Grammy-winning "Let Her Cry", and "Only Wanna Be With You", the latter reaching the top tier in the fall of 1995. They also won the "Best New Artist" trophy at the 1996 Grammys. The fourth single released from the record would be the mid-tempo "Time". Written by the band and produced by Don Gehman, the song tries to be introspective, glancing off phrases about gang violence and "dying for the color of red". However most of the words end of resentful and resigned to their fate...

"Time" just missed being their fourth top ten pop hit, stopping four notches away from the mark in January of 1996. The song topped Billboard magazine's Adult Top-40 radio chart for two weeks (their sole #1 on that format), and rose to #3 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") tally for a week. It also crossed over to #26 on their Mainstream Rock radio chart, and #17 on the Adult Album Alternative (or "triple-A") list. Internationally, the single took a week at #1 in Canada, hit #9 in Iceland, and peaked at #35 in New Zealand. A fifth single from the record, "Drowning", had actually run its course on rock radio in the time between "Only Wanna Be With You" and "Time", peaking at #21 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, but somehow it completely stiffed on pop stations, missing the Hot 100 altogether.

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Here's the demo studio version of the song from 1991...

and live at Farm Aid in 1995...

Here they are on tour in Charleston in 2006...

and lastly, revisiting the song on the Today Show in 2018...

Up tomorrow: This piano diva is hashtag lucky.