Songoftheday 3/5/21 - She says it's cold outside and she hands me my raincoat, she's always worried about things like that...

 

 

"3AM" - Matchbox 20

from the album Yourself or Someone Like You (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #3 (eight weeks)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 54

 

Today's song of the day comes from the rock band Matchbox 20, whose second radio offering "Push" wedged its way into the pop radio top-5 in the autumn of 1997. The third song from their debut album Yourself or Someone Like You promoted to radio was the midtempo rocker "3AM". Written by lead singer Rob Thomas, Matchbox bassist Brian Yale, and two members of that pair's former band Tabitha's Secret, Jay Stanley and John Leslie Goff, the revamped oldie describes a woman fighting with isolation, which Thomas says was inspired by his cancer-stricken mother. Even though beating the disease, the subject knows she is still mortal, and the wee hours of the evening highlight it the most while Rob singing to try to understand as a child...

Since "3AM", like their previous two radio hits, wasn't released as a commercial single, it wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However, the track got so much radio love that it spent over a year on the airplay component of that tally, and of that two months worth at #3 in February of 1998. The song spent ten weeks at #1 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 format chart, and crossed over to #25 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list. At rock radio, it took two weeks at #2 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and one at #3 on the Alternative Rock radio chart. Internationally, the single topped the Canadian singles chart for two weeks, and reached the top-40 in Australia at #31.

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Here's the band performing "3AM" on Letterman...

Next up, live in concert in 2004...

Lastly, an acoustic live take...

Up tomorrow: Punk rockers bid adieu.