Songoftheday 1/9/21 - Goodbye England's rose may you ever grow in our hearts, you were the grace that placed itself where lives were torn apart...

 

 

"Something About The Way You Look Tonight" / "Candle In The Wind 1997" - Elton John

from the album The Big Picture (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (fourteen weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 28

 

Today's song(s) of the day come from music legend Elton John, who we last saw with this 24th studio album Made In England, which scored a pair of top-40 pop hits in America with "Believe" and "Blessed", the latter at the end of 1995. The following year was rather quiet for Elton, only releasing yet another compilation called Love Songs, which did contain a new song, "You Can Make History (Young Again)", which went to #4 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart and #70 on the pop Hot 100. The album itself peaked at #24 but went on to sell over three million copies in the States, mostly because it was a way to get his two big songs from The Lion King, "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" and "Circle Of Life", without having to buy the soundtrack. 

1997 was a rough year for Elton, with close friend Gianni Versace being murdered in the spring, and Princess Diana of Wales tragically dying in a car accident in the summer. The loss of the latter inspired Elton to revisit his classic track "Candle In The Wind", which he had already redone in 1987 in concert that was released as a single and reached the top ten on the American pop chart. With Bernie Taupin writing new lyrics, Elton performed the song at Diana's funeral, which was memorialized in the CD Diana, Princess Of Wales: The BBC Recording of the Funeral Service. After the service, Elton, with the help of Beatles producer Sir George Martin, recorded a studio version of the remake with a string background to be released as a charity single benefiting the many causes Diana was involved in. Paired with Elton's first single from his upcoming The Big Picture album, "Something About The Way You Look Tonight", the record became the biggest-selling single in history, entering the American chart all the way at the top. At first, "Candle In The Wind 1997" was listed first for the first three weeks on the chart...

...followed by "Something About The Way You Look Tonight", which led for another eleven weeks. The song, overshadowed by the fanfare for "Candle", is a pleasant if by-the-numbers love song from Elton and Bernie and produced by Chris Thomas with strings arranged by the Art Of Noise's Anne Dudley. It bears more than a passing resemblance to "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" in the piano trills...

The "Candle In The Wind 1997"/"Something About The Way You Look Tonight" single spent fourteen weeks at the top of the official American pop chart starting in October of 1997, his final #1 hit (and top ten, for that matter) so far. "Something About The Way..." topped Billboard's Adult Contemporary radio chart for ten weeks (spending 68 weeks on the chart), and peaked at #12 on their Adult Top-40 format list. Meanwhile "Candle In The Wind 1997" climbed to #5 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and #22 on the Adult Top-40 tally. Internationally, the single went to #1 almost everywhere, racking up wins in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Elton's native UK. In Canada, where the songs were listed separately, "Candle" got to #14 and "Something" peaked at #13. The Big Picture album, which only had "Something About The Way...", came out in October, and made it to #9 on the Billboard 200 sales chart in the U.S.. At the 1998 Grammy Awards, "Candle In The Wind 1997" won Elton a trophy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. 

Despite the huge reception for the single, and "Something"'s lasting presence at radio (or maybe because of it), the follow-up "Recover Your Soul" was lost in the cracks, stopping at #55 on Billboard's Hot 100, though it did much better at Adult Contemporary radio, spending a half a year on the list peaking at #5. It also was a top-40 success in the UK (#16) and Canada (#39). A third release from the record, "If The River Can Bend", landed a third top-40 hit in Britain at #32. 

Candle in the Wind 1997: (8/10)             Something About The Way You Look Tonight: (7.5/10)

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Here's Elton performing the revised song at Diana's funeral, the only time he has ever sang it live...

..and "Something About The Way You Look Tonight", in concert in 2007 in New York City...

Up tomorrow: A fruity trio are loners.