Songoftheday 11/30/20 - One two boys by the river down by the water tellin' riddles in the dark, with fireflies under the moonlight carvin' the insides of a tree with a knife...

 

 

"The Difference" - The Wallflowers

from the album Bringing Down The Horse (1996)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #23 (one week)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 13

 

Today's song of the day comes from the rock band the Wallflowers, whose second album Bringing Down The Horse had already spun off a pair of decent radio hits with "6th Avenue Heartache" and the Grammy-winning "One Headlight", which reached the #2 spot on the pop airplay chart in the spring of 1997. The third cut from the record sent to radio would be "The Difference", written by bandleader (and son of Bob) Jakob Dylan and produced by T-Bone Burnett. The fast-paced track uses poetic but biting lyrics (kind of like Sheryl Crow at the time) to illustrate an unrequited love forward in time. This over a percussive-heavy beat that reminds of early-80s post-punk like the Jam and Elvis Costello...

Since "The Difference" wasn't available as a commercial "single", it wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However the song got enough pop radio love to make the top-40 of the airplay component of the tally in August of 1997. The song was much bigger on rock radio, where it spent two months (eight weeks) at #3 on the Mainstream Rock format chart, and cresting at #5 on the Alternative Rock radio list. It also reached #14 on the Adult Top-40 format chart as well. Internationally, the single peaked at #12 in Canada. 

A fourth radio promo from Bringing Down The Horse, "Three Marlenas", only got to #51 on the Hot 100 Airplay list, but was a decent rock radio hit again, topping at #17 at Alternative and #21 at Mainstream Rock lists in Billboard, while going to #27 on the Adult Top-40 list.

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Here's the band performing in concert in 2002...

and lastly, on Letterman a decade later...

Up tomorrow: Danish pop group takes on Mattel. Not Trixie.