Songoftheday 9/25/20 - She'll let you in her house if you come knockin' late at night, she'll let you in her mouth f the words you say are right...

 

 

"Secret Garden" - Bruce Springsteen

from the albums Greatest Hits (1995) and Jerry Maguire (Original Soundtrack) (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #19 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 13

 

Today's song of the day comes from New Jersey's hero Bruce Springsteen, whose "Streets Of Philadelphia" from the Philadelphia movie returned him to the pop top ten in the spring of 1994. A year later, Bruce released his first-ever Greatest Hits album, which had two new tracks on it. The first, the angry and topical "Murder Incorporated", climbed to #14 on Billboard magazine's Mainstream Rock radio chart. The second was a more tender ballad in "Secret Garden". Written by the artist, who produced the song with Jon Landau and Chuck Plotkin, originally got a muted reception at radio, going to #63 on the pop Hot 100. Later that year, Bruce released a somber acoustic record, The Ghost Of Tom Joad, which unlike his previous folk album, Nebraska, wasn't as well received by his "fans", and radio didn't take notice, even though that kind of set wasn't meant for them. It was his first studio effort since Born To Run to miss the top ten on the Billboard 200 sales chart, albeit by one notch at #11. (The title track "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" did manage to land Bruce a British top-40 hit at #26.)

While he was ending his Ghost Of Tom Joad acoustic tour at the beginning of 1997, the movie Jerry Maguire starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr. was released, and the soundtrack included "Secret Garden". The huge success of the movie caused a demand for "Secret Garden", and the single was re-released by Columbia, where fans and radio finally appreciated it...

"Secret Garden" became Springsteen's eighteenth and so far most recent top-40 pop hit in America in May of 1997. The song, which orignally hit easy listening radio in its first run in 1995, peaked at #5 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary radio chart, while making it to #12 on their Adult Top-40 format list. Internationally, the single reached the top-40 in Canada (#7), Australia (#9), Ireland (#14), Finland (#14), the UK (#17), and the Netherlands (#29). While the Greatest Hits album went to #1 back in 1995 and going four times platinum (4 million sold), the Jerry Maguire soundtrack didn't do too shabby, making it to #49 and selling over a million copies. 

After releasing a second "box set" of archival material, the four disc Tracks, in 1998, Bruce returned with his first rock-prevalent studio album in a decade in 2002 with The Rising. The title track rose to #16 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 chart, #26 on their Adult Contemporary list, and #24 on the Mainstream Rock radio tally, but in the waning time for straight-ahead rock music stalled down at #52 on the pop Hot 100. But with the album returning Bruce to #1 on the Billboard 200 and selling over two million, the Hot 100 radio fortunes seemed moot to his success at that point. He even nabbed his latest British top-40 hit with the follow-up "Lonesome Day" (UK #39). This record marked a start in a renewed passion in the artist, which continued with his next effort, Devils & Dust, in 2005, with the title track nabbing a Song of the Year Grammy nomination, as did "the Rising" in 2003 (that won did win Best Rock Song). Both songs won Best Male Rock Vocal awards as well. That set topped the sales chart, his best for a subdued acoustic folk-rock record. Another folk collection of songs from Pete Seeger followed, which did much better reaching #3 on the Billboard 200. His next two albums, 2007's Magic and Working On A Dream from 2009, topped the sales tally, giving Bruce an incredible four #1 studio sets in that first decade of the new millennium. In the next ten year, Springsteen produced two more #1 albums in Wrecking Ball and High Hopes, and his 2019 release Western Stars almost got there at #2. His new album Letter To You is expected next month, and the title track just entered Billboard's Adult Album Alternative radio chart all the way up at #11.

 

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Here's Bruce and the E Street Band performing "Tenth Avenue Freezeout" and "Secret Garden" on the Letterman show in 1995...

And lastly, live in concert in 2013 in the UK...