Songoftheday 5/15/24 - A hundred days have made me older, since the last time I saw your pretty face...

 

 

"Here Without You" - 3 Doors Down

from the album Away From The Sun (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 42

 

Today's song comes from the rock group 3 Doors Down, who had scored a second top ten hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the spring of 2003 with "When I'm Gone", the lead single from their second album Away From The Sun. That song, which was topping the rock radio list the previous year, was finally reaching pop stations when the former format was playing the moody "The Road I'm On", which climbed to #8 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart and #24 on the Alternative Rock counterpart. After "When It's Gone" left pop radio, the third single was offered cross-genre instead. "Here Without You", written by lead singer Brad Arnold, guitarists Matt Roberts and Chris Henderson, and bass player Todd Harrell, the lyrics seem to be wallowing in grief over a relationship (which Arnold disputes). He seems to ponder whether life is worth it and dreams about her every night. The production from Rick Parashar is minor-key dramatic but still melodic, with the climbing melody on the chorus seemingly more hopeful. The music video sees the band in the recording studio going through the motions...

"Here Without You" became the band's third (and so far last) top ten hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in November of 2003. On the radio, the song spent six weeks at #1 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, as well as thirteen weeks atop the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, and even making the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") station list at #14. At rock radio, it was a little more muted, rising to #14 on the Mainstream Rock chart and #22 on the Alternative Rock counterpart. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Australia (#2), Poland (#2), Denmark (#8), and New Zealand (#10), and hit the top-40 in Norway (#11), the Netherlands (#12), Austria (#13), Sweden (#14), Germany (#23), and Belgium (#26 Flanders) (it was a minor hit in the United Kingdom at #77). 

A final single from the record, title track "Away From The Sun", was another downbeat ballad, and while it reached the top ten on Mainstream Top-40 (#25), Adult Top-40 (#5), Adult Contemporary (#29), Mainstream Rock (#20), and Alternative Rock (#33) radio, lack of a commercial single for sales points made it stall down at #62 on the Hot 100. 

3 Doors Down will be back to the series.

(8/10)

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Here's the band in concert in 2005...

Up tomorrow: R&B Singer sees some personal precipitation.