Songoftheday 11/29/21 - Here I am on broken wings, quiet thoughts unspoken dreams...

 

 

"She's All I Ever Had" - Ricky Martin

from the album Ricky Martin (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 12

 

Today's song is from Ricky Martin, who kicked off the "Latin Explosion" of 1999 in mainstream pop music with his #1 hit "Livin' La Vida Loca" in the spring of 1999.  His momentum was so great that his World Cup anthem from his previous album, "The Cup Of Life", which also was in his English-language breakthrough album Ricky Martin, nearly made the top-40 as well. The second "single" from the record would slow things down for a bit with the lovelorn ballad "She's All I Ever Had". Written by 90's hitmaker Jon Secada along with Robi Rosa, Luis Gomez Escolar, and producer George Noriega, it definitely sounds like a Jon Secada record, with the minor chord progression and emotive singing on Martin's part, as he mourns a failed love affair. The prominent sitar, usually associated with Indian music, is a welcome touch. The music video hypes the "mournful" part, making Ricky a ghost haunting his love...

"She's All I Ever Had" became Ricky's second (and so far last) top ten pop hit, almost making it to the top in September of 1999. The song climbed to #4 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary radio chart, and got to #20 on the older-skewsing Adult Top-40 format list. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Canada (#3), Iceland (#6), New Zealand (#8), and Finland (#10), and reached the top-40 in Spain (#13), Germany (#18), the Netherlands (#19), Sweden (#21), Australia (#28), Belgium (#30W/#32F), and Switzerland (#34). Both Ricky and the album will be back to this series.

(8/10)

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Ricky recorded a Spanish-language version of the song called "Bella". It reached #1 on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs and Pop Latin Airplay charts, and was nominated for a Latin Grammy at the first awards in 2000, losing to Luis Miguel...

Next up, Ricky performing the song on Australian TV in 1999....

 

 

Martin performed both "She's All I Ever Had" and "Livin' La Vida Loca" at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards...

 

 

Here's a clip of songwriter (and SOTD artist) Jon Secada performing the song in concert....

And lastly, Ricky in concert in Las Vegas in 2017...

Up tomorrow: This country singer is in it from the start.