Songoftheday 4/6/20 - He said "The sun will never hurt you never harmed anyone but you must realize, if you try to stare her down she will win in the end...
from the album Fairweather Johnson (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12
Today's song of the day comes from the mainstream rock band Hootie & The Blowfish, whose major-label debut album Cracked Rear View was a massive success, selling over 21 million copies and spinning off four top-20 hits with "Hold My Hand", "Only Wanna Be With You", "Time", and the Grammy-winning "Let Her Cry". They also won the Grammy for Best New Artist, a promising sign for the band's upcoming sophomore effort Fairweather Johnson, which was released in the spring of 1996, preceded by the lead single "Old Man & Me (When I Get To Heaven)". Written by the band (Darius Rucker, Mark Bryan, Dean Felber, and Jim Sonefeld), the presumptuously-long-named track sounded just like all the tracks on Cracked Rear View, and I think people were starting to feel a bit of Hootie overkill by then. In fact, the song predated that album, appearing on their indie-released 1993 EP Kootchypop. But it was definitely showing a nuanced story in the lyrics, attempting to expand their musical palate...
While "Old Man & Me" became the band's fifth top-40 pop hit, the song notably missed the top ten tier, stopping a couple notches below in June of 1996. The song climbed to #4 on Billboard magazine's Adult Top-40 format chart, while peaking at #18 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list. It also did well on rock radio, reaching the Mainstream (#6) and Alternative (#33) rock format charts, and going to #1 on the newly-created Adult Album Alternative (Triple A) rock tally. Internationally, the single did much better in Canada, where it became their third #1 hit staying there for three weeks. It also got to #8 in Iceland, but only was a minor hit in the UK at #57 (though that still made the song their second-highest charting hit there after "Hold My Hand" at #50). The Fairweather Johnson album did manage to hit #1 for two weeks and sell over 3 million copies from the momentum that they had.
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Here's the band performing the song live in their hometown of Charleston, South Carolina in 2013...
Up tomorrow: German Eurodance duo go to sleep.
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