Songoftheday 5/10/21 - Zephyr in the sky at night I wonder, do my tears of mourning sink beneath the sun...

 

 

"Ray Of Light" - Madonna

from the album Ray Of Light (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 11

 

Today's song of the day is from Madonna, who had gone from playing Eva Peron to playing a spiritual advisor in her single "Frozen", which hit #2 in the spring of 1998. The second single from her Ray Of Light album would be the title track, written by Madonna with co-producer Willliam Orbit along with  David Curtis and Clive Muldoon of the folk duo Curtiss Muldoon, whose track "Sepheryn" from 1971 was the base for the track, and Muldoon's niece Christine Leach, who has tweaked the lyrics before Madonna got ahold of it. Starting out with an alt-rocky guitar, the track quickly jumps into a frenetic electro-dance jam where Madonna celebrates joy with experiencing the world around her and the pace that it rushes by. What really sold the song was the striking music video, which had Madonna dancing around to time-altered clips of everyday life around the world. Not many knew the origins of the song, and declared it a transformation for the singer...

"Ray Of Light" became the second top ten pop hit in America from the album in July of 1998. The song also blipped on to Billboard magazine's older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio chart for a week at #39. But where the song was most successful was on the dancefloor, as the remixes of the track helped it top their Dance Club Play chart for an entire month (four weeks), a big feat even back then. Internationally, the single went to #1 in Spain and Greece, and reached the top ten in the UK (#2), Finland (#2), Canada (#3), Italy (#5), Australia (#6), Hungary (#6), New Zealand (#9), and Iceland (#9). At the Grammy Awards in 1999, "Ray Of Light" won two awards, for Best Dance Recording and Best Short Form Music Video. It also was up for Record Of The Year, which Celine Dion took home for "My Heart Will Go On". 

(9/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the record "Ray Of Light" was based on, "Sepheryn", from way back in 1971...

Next up is Madonna appearing on Oprah to perform the song...

Here's the remix from Victor Calderone that aided in Madonna camping out on top of the dance chart for a full month...

She performed "Ray Of Light" along with album cut "Shanti Ashtangi" at the MTV Music Video Awards in 1998, where she picked up five trophies including Video of the Year and Best Female Video...

The singer first did "Ray Of Light" in concert on her Drowned World shows from 2001...

She also brought out the hit for Live 8 in 2005...

And finally, Madonna is rocking it out on her Sticky & Sweet tour in 2008...

Up tomorrow: A former maniac becomes benevolent.