Songoftheday 3/6/20 And what have I learned from all this pain, I thought I'd never feel the same about anyone or anything again...
from the album Older (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5
Today's song of the day comes from the late pop star George Michael, who had been busy in the early 90s feuding with his record company Sony, while sporadically releasing material like his live cover of "Somebody To Love" with the remaining members of Queen, the AIDS charity single "Too Funky", and the #1 hit duet with Elton John on his "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me". After that lull, George re-emerged in 1994 with his first new single in years, and what would be the first release from his upcoming third album, the first with media mogul David Geffen's Dreamworks Records. The song, "Jesus To A Child", was a somber and emotional farewell to George's passed love Anselmo Feleppa, but at the time Michael was still "in the closet", so the video had children's pain substituting for Michael's personal loss. It was a risky measure business-wise to put out such a sad ballad as a leadin single, but nevertheless on his name alone the song entered the chart in the top ten in both the US and the UK...
"Jesus To A Child" became George's thirteenth top ten pop hit in America in February of 1996. Although the song rocketed in at #7 and spent a second week there, it plummeted pretty quicky, spending just over a month in the top-40. On Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, the song peaked at #5, while on the newly-minted Adult Top-40 format list it made it to #20. It even crossed over to their R&B genre chart at #22 with respectable airplay from urban stations, and his last top-40 hit there. Internationally, the single was an even bigger success, entering the British chart at #1, while also topping the chart in Australia (two weeks), Finland (three weeks), Ireland (one week), Norway (one week), and Spain (seven weeks). The single also reached the top ten in Italy (#2), The Netherlands (#2), Sweden (#2), Belgium (#2W/#3F), Swizterland (#4), Denmark (#4), New Zealand (#5), France (#7), and Canada (#10). It Austria, it just missed at #11, while in Germany it peaked at #12.
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Here's George performing the song live at the MTV Music Awards in 1994...
and live in concert in 2008...
Up tomorrow: Rap collective earns some cash.
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