Songoftheday 11/1/20 - I need you in my arms need you to hold, you're my world my heart my soul and if you ever leave...

 

 

"How Do I Live" - LeAnn Rimes

from the album You Light Up My Life: Inspirational Songs (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (four weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 61

 

Today's song of the day comes from LeAnn Rimes, who as barely a teen had scored a top-40 pop/top ten country hit with her debut single "Blue" in the summer of 1996. She also took home the Grammy Award for Best New Artist a year later. In the spring of 1997, Rimes recorded a song from master song doctor Diane Warren meant for the movie Con Air starring Nicholas Cage. The ballad, "How Do I Live", was a grand swell of emotion over losing a love that the film producers ultimately (and stupidly) though Rimes couldn't relay at her young age. So going against Warren's wishes, they hired on country singer Trisha Yearwood to record the song (unwittingly per Trisha), and was released in May of that year. However, Warren got Rimes' record company to put out Rimes' version at the same time, and that proved to be a very very wise decision. For while both songs eventually would make the top-40, it would be Rimes' take that would be embraced faster and harder by the American mainstream public, and she found herself not only with the biggest song of her career, but one of the biggest singles of the entire rock era...

 

"How Do I Live" reached the runner-up spot on the American pop chart for a month in December of 1997, going on to spend 61 weeks in the top-40, at that time a record. It was so big that it appeared on Billboard magazine's year-end top singles chart in the top ten of both 1997 and 1998. The song topped Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary chart for eleven weeks, while climbing to #10 on their Adult Top-40 format. Even though Yearwood's version would be preferred by country radio stations, LeAnn still made it to #43 on the Country Airplay chart. Internationally, the single peaked at #4 in Norway, #5 in the Netherlands, and #7 in the UK. It also placed in the top-40 in Ireland (#14),  Australia (#17), Denmark (#17), Canada (#19), Germany (#22), Austria (#24), and Switzerland (#24). The You Light Up My Life album, her second new studio set under Curb Records, became her second #1 album behind the Unchained Melody: The Early Years compilation released at the beginning of 1997. At the Grammy Awards in 1998, both Rimes' and Yearwood's version of "How Do I Live" was nominated in the same category for Best Female Performance, which Yearwood ultimately won. But I'm sure selling over three million copies is enough to compensate for that.

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Here's LeAnn appearing on Top of the Pops to promote the single...

and live at the Billboard Music Awards in 1997...

And at the Grammys, right before she lost the award to Yearwood...

 

 

Next up is LeAnn on VH1 Divas at 1999...

LeAnn reprised the song on her AOL Sessions gig in 2011...

In 2018, remixes of the song (titled "Re-Imagined") reached #7 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart with mixes from Dave Aude. There is no YouTube vid for it, but Dave's mix can be listened to on his website by clicking here. Here's another mix from Cahill done from four years prior in 2014...

and lastly, Rimes in concert in 2017...

Up tomorrow: Holy soulers request their presence.