Days of Our Lives made me do it.
Year 1995
Album Bette of Roses
Music & Lyrics Mike Reid, Allen Shamblin
My Rating 8.30/10
I feel defensive about this one. What’s the deal with the random Bette Midler song? Well, it was played at the conclusion of a storyline on Days Of Our Lives. That’s all I can say.
Well, so, there was this popular super-couple Bo and Hope. Then Hope died. Bo moved on with Carly. The actor who played Bo left. Bo and Carly drifted apart, and after Vivian buried Carly alive, Carly left town with her old love Lawrence. The show paired new Bo with Billie, a character I couldn’t stand. One day, a woman named Gina came to town. She looked just like Hope. Days brought back the old Bo. Eventually, it turned out that it was Hope; she hadn’t died. Billie loved Bo but knew he’d choose Hope in the end. So she left town, thank goodness, and this song was played. And the song stuck with me for some reason. So, there…
Apparently, this is not such a random song. It was actually a number one song–on the country charts, by Collin Raye, in 1992. Well, now I know that. Maybe I ought to look that up, in my quest for adult contemporary song knowledge (that original version also hit #21 on the AC chart). Eh, I don’t like it. I’ll stick with Bette Midler’s version.
Countdown Note
I’m discovering that there are a lot of songs I neglected to rate. These aren’t necessarily well-known, well-received songs. (Some are.) These are songs I once loved that I put on mixtapes that I simply didn’t come across during my rating period. I tried to listen to lots of my old mixtapes and as wide a selection of my digital music as possible. But, as much, as I spent dozens, if not hundreds, of hours listening to music in preparation for this countdown, I didn’t get around to ensuring that I had listened to everything. I wish I could share these neglected songs, but that would be providing spoilers of what has been omitted.
I think you should include the songs that were missed. Billboard has a notion of “bubbling under” or something like that. Then should you ever try to do another countdown, you would have a more complete song listing compiled to start from. And if you’re really worried about spoilers, just leak them out slowly instead of all at once.
I had to look up “bubbling under”. So those would be like songs #380-400. Here, I’m referring to songs I just completely forgot about, which I think are lot better than #380-400. But I guess the concept is similar. Many songs that never charted wound up being well-received at some later point in time.
My list of “songs I missed” only has seven songs right now. It will probably increase a lot if I ever get around to that long-ignored task of ensuring that my CDs have been ripped to MP3s.
I’ll probably take your suggestion and mention some from time to time.