Songoftheday 3/31/20 - How do you cool your lips after a summer's kiss? How do you rid the sweat after the body bliss?
from the album Living Under June (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #12 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 30
Today's song of the day comes from Canadian singer/songwriter Jann Arden, who grew up in the Calgary area, where she met up with producer and longtime manager Neil MacGonigill. In 1993, she put out her debut studio album Time For Mercy, which scored three top-40 hits in Canada, including the top ten single "Will You Remember Me". Arden returned the following year with her sophomore effort, Living Under June, which would become her first charting album in her homeland at #10. Lead single "Could I Be Your Girl" rose to #3 in Canada, and eventually found its way to American, landing on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format chart at #33 in 1995. The second single from the record, the breezy yet biting "Insensitive", topped the Canadian chart at the start of 1995, then again after a long wait and after being used in the movie Bed Of Roses starring Christian Slater, it found an audience in America, and started a long climb into the pop top-20. Written by fellow western Canadian Anne Loree, the song detailed a bad breakup with an uncaring partner...
"Insensitive" became Arden first and only pop hit on the official American pop Hot 100 chart in June of 1996, eventually spending over six months on the list. The song also rose to #4 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, and got to #6 on the Adult Top-40 format tally. Internationally, besides topping the Canadian chart for three weeks at the beginning of 1995, the single also took a week at #1 in Australia, and reached the top-40 in Italy (#14) and the UK (#40). The album ended up landed four more top ten hits in Canada. The next single from Living Under June, "Wonderdrug" peaked at #4, while her collaboration with Jackson Browne, "Unloved", topped out at #8. Then came what would be my favorite cut of hers, "Good Mother", which climbed to #9, followed by "Looking For It (Finding Heaven)", which got to #7. The Living Under June album got to #10 in her homeland, while reaching #76 in the US, her sole charting album here. At the Juno Awards, Canada's version of the Grammys, "Insensitive" won the award for Single of the Year.
In 1997 Jann came back with her third record, Happy?, which landed another trio of top-40 Canadian hits including the #3 single "The Sound Of", but in America it went unnoticed. Not long after that, Arden and MacGonigle split professionally and personally. She's continued to release music successfully in Canada since, with two more top ten singles in 2005 with "Where No One Knows Me" and again the following year with "Bring The Boys Home". Since Living Under June, Arden has released nine studio albums, all reaching the top ten on the Canadian sales chart. Her most recent single hit was in 2010 with "I Can't Make You Stay", which went to #92 on the singles chart at #5 at Canadian Adult Contemporary radio. Her most recent album, These Are The Days, came out in 2018 and went to #5.
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Here's Jann appearing on New Years Rockin' Eve in 1997 ...
and on the Concert for Heroes in 2012...
Next up, performing the song with Canadian legend Anne Murray...
and finally, solo and acoustic from her Songs & Stories show...
Up tomorrow: A rap act talk about a girl from Don't Be A Menace.
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