Songoftheday 1/27/21 - When you love someone so deeply they become your life, it's easy to succumb to overwhelming fears inside...

 

 

"Butterfly" - Mariah Carey

from the album Butterfly (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 airplay peak: #16 (one week)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 9

 

Today's song of the day comes from Mariah Carey, who had led off her sixth album Butterfly with the #1 pop hit "Honey" in the fall of 1997.  The second song from the record promoted to radio would be the title track, written and produced by the singer with Walter Afanasieff. A musical analogy to her declaring freedom from her marriage from record exec Tommy Mottola, the song was a little more nuanced than her previous chalkboard ballads, as the personal nature really shown through in both the lyrics and her performance. It's notable since the words are sung as it is was the person letting go, which would make one assume that would be Mottola. Although it wasn't released as a commercial single in the U.S. (most likely to goose sales of the album), radio took to the song, though maybe not as strongly as her high-profile R&B/dance numbers...

"Butterfly" wasn't able to place on the official Hot 100 pop chart in Billboard magazine since it wasn't available physically as a "single", but had enough radio love to make the top-20 of the airplay component of that tally in November of 1997. The song also climbed to #11 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, and got to #35 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format list. It even made the R&B Airplay chart at #27. Internationally, the single reached the top-40 in Belgium (#5), New Zealand (#15), the UK (#22), Canada (#22), Sweden (#24), and Australia (#27). At the Grammy Awards in 1998, "Butterfly" was nominated for Best Pop Female Performance, losing out to Sarah McLachlan's "Building A Mystery". 

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"Butterfly" originally started out as a dance track, which also appeared on the Butterfly album as "Fly Away (Butterfly Reprise)". Remixed into a promo release serviced to DJ, the song went to #13 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart...

Next up, Mariah appearing on Letterman to promote the album...

Mariah performed "Butterfly" at the tribute concert for Princess Diana, fitting considering the lyrics..

and finally, live in concert on the Butterfly tour in 1998...

Up tomorrow: Christian-pop star puts on the brakes.