Songoftheday 11/28/20 - She's taking her time making up the reasons, to justify all the hurt inside guess she knows...

 

 

"To The Moon And Back" - Savage Garden

from the album Savage Garden (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #24 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 11 (one in 1997, 10 in 1998)

 

Today's song of the day comes from the Australian pop duo Savage Garden, who landed a top ten pop hit in America their first time out with their former #1 in their own country, "I Want You", in the spring of 1997. Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones' second single Down Under, "To The Moon And Back", also went to #1, so it was a natural that it should probably follow its success here. Written by the duo and produced by Charles Fisher, the midtempo song was much meatier in the lyrics, with Darren singing in the third person about a girl who has real-world issues but searches for love as the one promising the titular trip herself. It was different, it was catchy, and it was different enough from their debut to make it distinct...

While "To The Moon And Back" climbed into the American top-40 rather quickly, radio was not giving up "I Want You", and ended up blunting the follow-up's impact, spending only a single week there initially in August of 1997. However, after their next single, "Truly Madly Deeply", became even more massive than "I Want You", the record company decided to put out "To The Moon And Back" again, where it reentered the Billboard magazine Hot 100 chart and made the top-40 again at a somewhat higher rank a year later. The song, which also initially reached the Adult Top-40 list in 1997, ended up peaking at #17, spending a half-year (26 weeks) on the list, while on its second go in 1998 made their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format chart at #29. Internationally, besides its chart-topping success in their homeland, the single made the top ten in the UK (#3, the highest they ever got in that country), New Zealand (#4), and Greece (#4), while reaching the top-40 in France (#11), Sweden (#11), Germany (#14), Ireland (#14), Canada (#15), Switzerland (#16), Iceland (#27), Belgium (#28F), and the Netherlands (#35).

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The original video for the song on its 1996 release in Australia was much more low-rent, filmed in black-and-white as well trying to depict a dystopian work, with them as astronauts dangling on cables...

The first video for the U.S. was in color, but was a little too eighties-geared...

Here's the duo performing in concert behind the album...

 

and lastly, a year later at Rock im Park...

Up tomorrow: Enticing R&B group recreated a freestyle powerballad classic for their biggest success.