Songoftheday 5/26/20 - Swallow it down what a jagged little pill, it feels so good swimming in your stomach...

"You Learn" / "You Oughta Know" - Alanis Morissette
from the album Jagged Little Pill (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 29

Today's song(s) of the day come from Canadian singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette, whose landmark album Jagged Little Pill had already spun off three big hits in America with "You Oughta Know", "Hand In My Pocket", and "Ironic", with the last one finally becoming her first "official" Hot 100 hit since it was released as a physical single in the spring of 1996. Her next song from the album to be promoted to radio and released as a commercial single was the midtempo reflection of life that is "You Learn". Written by Alanis and her producer Glen Ballard, the song professes that even your mistakes are worth something in that they show you what went wrong. And the lyrics include the "jagged little pill" in the album title for the bridge...

"You Learn" became Alanis' second top ten pop hit in the U.S. in July of 1996. The song spent eight weeks at #3 on Billboard magazine's Adult Top-40 radio chart, while getting to #23 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format list. The track even made three rock charts there as well: #2 at Triple-A (Adult Album Alternative), #7 at Alternative Rock, and #40 at Mainstream Rock. Internationally, the single topped the Canadian singles chart for three weeks, and reached the Top-40 in Iceland (#2), New Zealand (#13), Australia (#20), and the UK (#24).

Since the B-side, her live Grammy performance of "You Oughta Know" now was on all the American singles for "You Learn", because of Billboard's funky rules at the time allowed it to be listed and the airplay counted towards the total points (like they did with Melissa Etheridge's "Like The Way I Do" awhile back). So because of this, that song "officially" became a top ten hit as well...