Songoftheday 7/19/21 - She grew up with the children of the stars in the Hollywood hills and the Boulevard...

 

 

"Lullaby" - Shawn Mullins

from the album Soul's Core (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 16

 

Today's song of the day comes from singer/songwriter Shawn Mullins, who grew up in Georgia and served in the military before embarking on a music career in the 1990s.  His first major indie release was Better Days in 1992, followed by two more sets on his own label. It would be his fourth disc, Soul's Core, which was picked up by Columbia Records, that would bring Mullins to the mainstream. The lead single from the record was "Lullaby", written by Shawn and produced by Peter Collins. A storyteller's song about a down-on-her-luck woman that dreams of a better life to put her to bed, it touches the oft-used subject with the twist that she comes from privilege, but now just fights her demons alone. He starts out with a sardonic spoken-word delivery with a hip-hop-inspired backbeat before letting the chorus fill the ears with a wall of sound, even though it's hard to drum up sympathy...

"Lullaby" connected with a lot of people that year, sending it into the pop top ten in America in January of 1999. The song rose to #9 on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock radio chart, but its biggest reception was in the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, where it spent eight weeks at #1. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Canada (#2), Australia (#5), the UK (#9), and Sweden (#10).  The Soul's Core album, released in July of 1998, got as high as #54 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a half million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1999, "Lullaby" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, which Eric Clapton took home for "My Father's Eyes". 

Shawn's follow-up single, "Shimmer", used the same backbeat style as "Lullaby" with the speak-singing put to the background, making it sound like a Hootie/Counting Crows knockoff. The song missed the pop chart, but rose to #27 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 list, and made the top-40 in Australia at #39 due to its inclusion in the promotion of the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000. 

Later in 1999, Mullins covered ex-Beatle George Harrison's #1 pop hit from 1971 "What Is Life?" for the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy. The track was ignored here in America, but it was a minor hit in the UK at #62. He returned with his next studio album Beneath The Velvet Sun in 2000, but while the song "Everywhere I Go" rose to #13 on the Adult Top-40 chart, and went to #3 on the Triple-A (Adult Album Alternative) Rock format, mainstream radio and music buyers simply gave it a pass. Leaving Columbia, Mullins eventually signed with Vanguard Records, where after a six year break Shawn released 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor, which spun off the #2 Triple-A Rock hit "Beautiful Wreck". His second attempt with the imprint, Honeydew, actually sold enough to pop on to the Billboard 200 sales tally (his second time) at #199 for a week in 2008. Mullins' third and final disc for Vanguard, Light You Up, produced his most recent Triple-A Rock charting hit, "Light You Up", which went all the way to #3 in 2010. As with a lot of pop/rock singer/songwriters, all these failed follow-ups are truly better than his one hit wonder.

Since then, Mullins switched to the Sugar Hill label, releasing one album My Stupid Heart in 2015. His most recent record, a redo of his biggest titled Soul's Core Revival, came out independently in 2018.

(6/10)

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Here's Shawn on a Dutch radio show promoting the song in 1999...

Next up, an intimate show on his Cold: Live At The Chapel live set in 2000...

and finally, in concert in 2015...

Up tomorrow: A Swedish pop star's brother rescues the evening.