Songoftheday 9/28/20 - Oh you get me ready in your 56 Chevy, why don't we go sit down in the shade...

 

 

"Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?" - Paula Cole

from the album This Fire (1996)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 17

 

Today's song of the day comes from pop singer/songwriter Paula Cole, who grew up in coastal Massachussetts. An alumnus of the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Paula signed on with the Imago record label. Her debut album Harbinger was released in 1994, but at the time the Imago label was going bust, and the set's lead single "I Am So Ordinary" only managed to just miss the Canadian top-40 at #42. Warner Brothers' bought off Imago, so things were better for Cole's sophomore effort, This Fire, in 1996. By then she had been touring with alternative rock god Peter Gabriel, so her exposure to the music world was much stronger. Even so, the first single promoted to radio, "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?", arrived five months after the release of the LP. Written and produced by Cole, the wistful expansive rock track fit right in with the Jewels and the Joan Osbornes radio was favoring during that time...

"Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?" became Cole's sole top ten pop hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in May of 1997. The song was strong on "easy listening" radio, peaking at #4 on their Adult Top-40 format list and #27 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart. It also crossed over to make it to #32 on the Alternative Rock tally. The dance remixes of the song helped the record rise to #10 on the Dance Club Play chart as well. Internationally, the single went to #7 in Canada, and reached the top 40 in the UK (#15), Australia (#32), New Zealand (#32), and Iceland (#35). The This Fire album crested at #20, going on to sell over two million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1998, Paula received an amazing seven nominations, winning Best New Artist that year. "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone" was up for Record and Song of The Year, losing both to fellow pop-folkie Shawn Colvin for "Sunny Came Home", as well as Best Female Pop Vocal, which Sarah McLachlan took for "Building A Mystery". This Fire also was nominated for Album of the Year, which Bob Dylan took home for Time Out Of Mind, as well as Best Pop Album, which went to James Taylor for his Hourglass. Lastly, Cole was up for Best Producer (a great feat for a breakthrough album), which Babyface won that year. 

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the Dekkard's Rancho Pepe mix, one of the reworks that helped the song make the dance chart top ten in Billboard...

Next up is Paula performing the song on Letterman in 1997...

Here's Paula at the Rockfest in 1997...

and lastly, for a spot at Paste Magazine in 2010...

 

Up tomorrow: R&B star has no intention of that.