Songoftheday 7/20/21 - Go on and close the curtains, 'cause all we need is candlelight...

 

 

"Save Tonight" - Eagle-Eye Cherry

from the album Desireless (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 25

 

Today's song of the day comes from singer/songwriter Eagle-Eye Cherry, who was born in Sweden but grew up in New York City alongside his half-sister Neneh Cherry of "Buffalo Stance" fame. The son of jazz trumpeter Don Cherry (not the pop singer from the 50's), Eagle-Eye went to art school before acting in a couple movies and on the cancelled within its first season show South Beach. Signing as a recording artist with Polydor, Cherry wrote his debut album Desireless mostly on his own, though with the title track a composition of his dad's. The lead single from the record was "Save Tonight", one of his own songs. Cherry goes the jangle-pop troubadour route on this, with a simplified "let's have one more for the road" theme as he serenades his intended with last night of pleasure. I think what made this click was the music video, which has Eagle-Eye play a myriad of characters in a seemingly one-shot take through the city...

"Save Tonight" became Cherry's true "one-hit wonder", his only song to make the pop Hot 100 in America in January of 1999. The song rose to #8 on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock radio chart, while spending over a year on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, with six of the 54 weeks at #3. The song also topped the Triple-A (Adult Album Alternative) Rock radio list. Internationally, the single was a big hit, reaching the top ten in Sweden (#2), Ireland (#3), the UK (#6), Switzerland (#7), Greece (#7), Hungary (#7), Iceland (#8), Canada (#9), the Netherlands (#9), Norway (#9), and Belgium (#9F/#27W). The Desireless album, originally released in July of 1997, just missed the top-40 at #45 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, though selling over a million copies in the process. At the Grammy Awards in 1999, "Save Tonight" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, losing to Eric Clapton for his own flaccid "My Father's Eyes". 

 

Despite the huge success of "Save Tonight", pop and rock radio mostly left Cherry after this hit. His next single, "Falling In Love Again", made the top ten in the UK at #8, but was ignored here in the States. Perhaps it sounded so much like "Save Tonight" that radio just kept on playing the known hit. A third song from Desireless, "Permanent Tears", even missed the top-40 in Britain at #43, though it was a bit more interesting. Meanwhile, in Sweden, the song "When Mermaids Cry" was released as a single, where it made the top-40 at #34.

In 2000, Eagle-Eye returned with his sophomore effort, Living In The Present Future. Lead single "Are You Still Having Fun?", co-produced by Rick Rubin, was a moderate hit, reaching the top-40 in Sweden at #18, the UK at #21, as well as in France, Italy, and Denmark, but passed over in America. Here, the song "Feels So Right" from the album climbed to #22 on the Adult Top-40 format, and #18 at Triple-A Rock. Even a collaboration with Neneh with "Long Way Around" missed the British Top-40 at #48. A third and final album on Polydor, Sub Rosa, only skimmed the top-40 in Sweden at #40, with single "Skull Tattoo" a minor hit in that country at #54. Since then, Cherry has released two albums, his most recent being Streets of You in 2018. This spring, he put out a new single, "I Like It". 

(6/10)

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Here's Eagle-Eye on a live TV appearance in 1998...

Next up, in concert in 2010...

That same year, Swedish boyband E.M.D. released a cover of "Save Tonight" transformed into a waltz-tempo ballad. The single went all the way to #3 in that country...

 

 

And back to Cheery on a wacky German TV show in 2018, when he released as revamped version...

and finally, an acoustic take in 2012...

Up tomorrow: Possessive R&B singer has a question.