Songoftheday 9/28/22 - When I think back on these times and the dreams we left behind, I'll be glad 'cause I was blessed to get to have you in my life...

 

 

"There You'll Be" - Faith Hill

from the album Pearl Harbor (Original Soundtrack) (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 9

 

Today's song comes from country music star Faith Hill, whose fourth studio album Breathe had scored three hits in the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart, with "If My Heart Had Wings", "The Way You Love Me", and "Breathe", with the latter becoming the biggest "pop" hit in the trade bible for 2000. However that massive mainstream success created a bit of resentment in Nashville, for some reason (ahem, the patriarchy), even though her husband Tim McGraw had a lot of pop success without consequences (at least for awhile). Her next move probably didn't help much - a Diane Warrren-written power-ballad for the Ben Affleck movie Pearl Harbor in the spring of 2001. "There You'll Be", produced by Trevor Horn (of Yes and the Buggles) and Byron Gallimore (Tim's go-to), has more in common with Aerosmith's "I Wouldn't Change A Thing" than her own "Just To Hear You Say That You Love Me" (both Warren compositions). The soaring soundtrack-ready melody is fitting for her voice, and she does her all to sell it, but the lyrics are the same Hallmark card fodder that's been done so so many times. Faith's vocals are fantastic, but this so clearly is product, fitting for a Michael Bay film, but the soccer moms ate it up, and "There You'll Be" flew up the charts...

"There You'll Be" became Faith's fifth song (and so far last) to make the top ten on Billboard's Hot 100  in June of 2001. Tellingly, the song stalled right under the top ten on their Country Airplay chart (I truly believe radio was sending a message with that) at #11. But on the "pop" radio side of things it was a different story; while the track got to #23 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, and #14 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, at the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") airplay list, it lingered for 50 weeks, with twelve of them at #1. Internationally, the single topped the charts in Canada, Sweden, and Portugal, and reached the top ten in Belgium (#2F/#5W), the United Kingdom (#3), The Netherlands (#4), Norway (#4), Ireland (#4), Austria (#5), Switzerland (#5), Denmark (#7), and Germany (#8), and came a notch away in Italy and New Zealand (#11). The Pearl Harbor soundtrack album, released in May of that year with an all-instrumental score by Hans Zimmer save for Hill's song, still went to #14 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, selling over a half-million copies. At the Grammy Awards in February of 2002, "There You'll Be" was nominated for Best Female Pop Performance, losing to Nelly Furtado for her debut hit "I'm Like A Bird". A month later, the song was up for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, which went to Randy Newman for his Monsters, Inc. theme "If I Didn't Have You". Faith will be back to the series.

(6/10)

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Here's Faith and an orchestra performing the song for a TV special...

As custom, Hill sang a truncated version of "There You'll Be" at the Oscars, where she was nominated for Best Song...

and lastly, in a concert for the Great American Country network...

Up tomorrow: Another crossover country success, this band has arrived.