Songoftheday 11/3/20 - She didn't believe in transcendence, it's time for a few small repairs she said...

 

 

"Sunny Came Home" - Shawn Colvin

from the album A Few Small Repairs (1996)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 23

 

Today's song of the day comes from indie-folk singer/songwriter Shawn Colvin, who was born in South Dakota and spent her youth between the U.S. and Canada. A lover of folk music since her younger years, Shawn went on tour with 1980s alt-folk icon Suzanne Vega. In 1989 she signed with Columbia Records, and released her debut album Steady On. The title track and lead single reached #23 on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock radio chart and #30 on the Adult Contemporary format list, while the album, which placed on the Billboard 200 sales chart at #111, won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1991. A year later, Colvin returned with Fat City, which landed another radio hit with "Round Of Blues", which peaked at #25 at Alternative Rock radio and #44 at Adult Contemporary, and was her first minor British hit single at #73. The album scored another nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album, losing out to Nanci Griffith's classic Other Voices, Other Rooms, while another track from the set, "I Don't Know Why", which rose to #16 at Adult Contemporary radio, was up for Best Pop Female Vocal, which went to Whitney Houston for her rendition of "I Will Always Love You". In 1994, Shawn released an album of remakes, Cover Girl, which didn't get much radio attention in the U.S., but was her first set to crack the top half of the Billboard 200 sales chart at #48, and landed a top-40 hit in the UK with "One Cool Remove" with Mary-Chapin Carpenter at #40. The album also got her third consecutive Grammy nom for Best Contemporary Album, which went to Johnny Cash's American Recordings. 

Colvin came back in 1996 with her fourth studio effort, A Few Small Repairs. The lead single, "Get Out Of This House", was mostly ignored in the States (it was a minor British hit at #70), but the song landed her second Best Pop Female Vocal Grammy nomination, losing to Toni Braxton's "Un-Break My Heart". But the second release from the record inspired by her marriage ending would rectify that. "Sunny Came Home", written by Colvin with producer John Leventhal, was a grim story of a woman who flees her life taking her along with burning down the house, leaving open the question of whether the husband was still in there...

 

"Sunny Came Home" became Shawn's first and only pop hit in the States on the Hot 100, reaching the top ten in July 1997. The single was huge on "easy listening" radio, spending four weeks at #1 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart, and seven weeks on top of the Adult Top-40 format list in Billboard. Internationally, the single climbed to #3 in Canada, and was a top-40 hit in Iceland (#20) and the UK (#29). The A Few Small Repairs album made the top-40 on the Billboard 200 at #39 (her highest rank there), spending a year on the chart and selling over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1997, the album was up for Best Pop Vocal Album (which Celine Dion took home for Falling Into You), but a year later, "Sunny Came Home" was up for three categories, winning both Record of the Year and Song of the Year, only losing Best Pop Female Performance to Sarah McLachlan for "Building A Mystery". 

 

The third single from the record was "You And The Mona Lisa", which missed the pop Hot 100 but placed on the Adult Top-40 chart at #31. That was followed by "Nothin' On Me", which landed at #24 on that list (and #25 on the Canadian singles chart), and was the theme song for Brooke Shields' sitcom Suddenly Susan for a time. I guess the American radio people were only ready for one thoughtful indie-folk record a decade, coming 10 years after Colvin's mentor Vega scored with "Luka". 

After a holiday record in 1998, Colvin didn't return until 2001 with a regular studio set with Whole New You. The title track made it to #24 on Billboard's Adult Contempoary chart, her most recent radio hit. Since then, Shawn left Columbia and has released five more studio albums (including one with country rocker Steve Earle). A concert recording from 2009, Shawn Colvin Live, was nominated again for Best Contemporary Folk Album, losing out to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' collaborative set Raising Sand. Her most recent offering, The Starlighter, came in 2018.

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Here's Shawn appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman in 1997...

Next up performing at the 1998 Grammy's where "Sunny Came Home" won the two biggest trophies...

Here she is in concert...

And finally, an acoustic reading with just Shawn and another guitarist in 2017...

Up tomorrow: Florida rock group dedicates this jangle-pop gem.