Songoftheday 1/22/22 - Maybe it's intuition but some things you just don't question, like in your eyes I see my future in an instant...
"I Knew I Loved You" - Savage Garden
from the album Affirmation (1999)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 28
Today's song is from the Australian pop duo Savage Garden, who scored their fourth top-40 hit in America in the spring of 1999 with "The Animal Song", which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie The Other Sister as well as serving as the lead single for their sophomore album Affirmation. For the follow-up, Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones were compelled by their record company Columbia to come up with a copy of their big single from their debut, "Truly Madly Deeply". The result, "I Knew I Loved You", was indeed a good approximation of that love ballad, albeit a bit watered down with treacly production and Hallmark movie lyrics that had the weirdly prophetic chorus of "I knew I loved you before I met you, I think I dreamed you into life". Nevertheless, Darren sure knows how to deliver a breathy but romantic vocal, and the backdrop from the duo with co-producer Walter Afanasieff fit in with all the boy-band/Britney ballads dominating radio at the time. While "Animal Song" was only a moderate (at best) hit in the States, this one proves to be massive. The music video had Hayes connecting with a young Kirsten Dunst on a subway...
"I Knew I Loved You" became Savage Garden's second #1 pop hit in America in January of 2000. The song spent a whopping seventeen weeks at #1 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, spending 124 weeks on the list (breaking the previous record they set with "Truly" for 123 weeks). It also took two weeks at #3 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format airplay list. Internationally, the single topped the chart in Canada and Romania, and reached the top ten in Sweden (#3), New Zealand (#3), their native Australia (#4), Norway (#7), Belgium (#9F), and the UK (#10). It also made the top-40 in Italy (#13), Denmark (#13), Iceland (#15), Ireland (#18), Germany (#34), Switzerland (#34), and Austria (#36). Both Savage Garden and the Affirmation album will be back to the series for one last go-around.
(6/10)
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Next up, live in concert in 2000...
In 2001, country singer Daryle Singletary covered the ballad and released it as a single, which went to #55 on Billboard's Country Singles chart...
Back to Savage Garden, who sang "I Knew I Loved You" on the American Music Awards that same year...
And lastly, in 2021, Darren Hayes took part in Gary Barlow (of Take That)'s quarantine "Crooner Sessions", reprising the song...
Up tomorrow: An R&B trio enlists a boyband for acquisition purposes.
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