Songoftheday 9/17/21 -I said hey boy sittin in your tree, Mummy always wants you to come for tea...

 

 

"C'est La Vie" - B*Witched

from the album B*Witched (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #9 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 8

Today's song comes from the Irish female vocal group B*Witched (I dunno, maybe they would've gotten sued if they had the 'e' in the name), The four young women came together in Dublin in the late 1990's, with sisters Keavy and Edele Lynch, who are sisters of Shane Lynch of the immensely popular Irish boy-band Boyzone, joined up with Sinead O'Carroll and Lindsay Armaou. Signed to Epic Records, the foursome released their debut single "C'est La Vie" originally in the British Isles and Europe in the spring of 1998. Written by the group with producer Ray Hedges along with Martin Brannigan and Tracey Ackerman, the ultra-light ditty plays with nursery-rhyme language in charming a boy, with "I'll huff and puff and blow you away" and "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" pulls a lot of weird implied weight here. With a production backdrop seemingly taken from the Nickelodeon channel, the song nevertheless became a big international success. That doesn't always translate to crossover in America (look at Keavy and Edele's brother's band, who never made the American Hot 100), but somehow this caught on. It could have been the promotion on kids TV, it could've been singles sales shenanigans, since while it did get radio play it was a huge sales record. The women found themselves almost a year later with their first hit landing big in the U.S. I do give a slight bit of credit for the subtle use of the Irish jig music in the denouement...

"C'est La Vie" became B*witched's first and only top-40 pop hit in America, reaching the top ten on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in April of 1999. Internationally, the single topped the charts in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, and made the top-40 in Belgium (#2F/#13W), Australia (#6), Hungary (#7), Norway (#9), Sweden (#11), the Netherlands (#11), Iceland (#19), and Austria (#23), The B*Witched album, released in March of 1999 in the U.S., did pretty well, peaking at #12 on the Billboard 200 sales chart and going on to sell over a million copies. 

The group followed up this success with the song "Rollercoaster", which also topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, and reached #2 in their native Ireland. It was written and produced by the same team, but I guess America was only ready for one dose of that much pop sugar, and it stalled down at #67 on the Hot 100, their last American pop placing. 

Meanwhile, their international popularity didn't wane (at first), with third release "To You I Belong", their attempt to be "serious" with a ballad, became their third consecutive #1 hit in Britain, while hitting top ten in Ireland (#4) and New Zealand (#7). That was followed by "Blame It On The Weatherman", their rewrite of Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn", and my favorite out of the bunch, which also went to the top of the singles chart in the UK, while peaking at #8 in Ireland. Later in 1999, the group appearing on the "tribute" single medley of ABBA in "Thank You For The Music", which reached the top ten in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden. 

B*Witched returned at the end of 1999 with their sophomore effort Awake and Breathe. The album again did OK in the UK, reaching #5, while also going to #91 on the Billboard 200 in America, which is surprising since all of the singles stiffed in the States. Meanwhile overseas, lead-off "Jesse Hold On", landed the group what would be their last top ten British hit at #4. Trying to "evolve" their sound, second release "I Shall Be There" even paired them with legendary South African act Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and rose to #13 in the UK.  It was definitely their most ambitious work, and it did work to an extent. Their third single, "Jump Down", took them back to the fluff of their debut, and was their final top-40 hit in Britain at #16. The label ended up dropping them, leaving them in limbo since.

In 2012, the group came back together for the combo reality show/concert series The Big Reunion, and a year later put out an EP of new material called Champagne & Guinness. They also released a one-off remake of Wilson Phillips' #1 hit "Hold On" in 2019. 

(4/10)

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Here's B*Witched performing on the Disney Channel in 1999, one of the big ways they connected with the younger audiences...

Next up, in concert in Ireland at their peak...

and finally, on The Big Reunion in 2012...

and for a bonus, I had to include this version from Oxford University's acappella group Out Of The Blue who throw in a little "spice" to the song...

Up tomorrow: This Dutch group hates a quiet evening.