Wishing Well

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Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Wishing Well
  DE 18th 08/17/1987 (14 weeks)
  AT 10 09/15/1987 (14 weeks)
  CH 5 08/02/1987 (13 weeks)
  UK 4th 06/20/1987 (11 weeks)
  US 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link January 16, 1988 (25 weeks)

Wishing Well is a 1987 song by Terence Trent D'Arby written by him and Sean Oliver. It appeared on the album Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby .

history

Sananda Maitreya wrote the song together with Sean Oliver "in a half awake and half asleep state" and also said in an interview that he liked the feeling of the words very much. He took over the production with Martyn Ware from Heaven 17 .

The text of the song is to be understood as a love song. It can be assigned to the musical genres soul , pop and funk .

It was released on June 19, 1987, and it became a number one hit in the United States and Netherlands . In October 1991, the Recording Industry Association of America awarded the song with the gold record . At the 1988 Grammy Awards , Terence Trent D'Arby performed the song live, but lost to Jody Watley in the nomination for best new artist . After the Eurythmics classic Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) from 1983, it is the song on the Billboard Hot 100 that took the longest (17 weeks) to climb to position 1.

reception

New Yorker's Ben Greenman described Wishing Well, along with other Maitreya songs, as "bringing soul music into the 1980s ." Stephen Thomas Erlewine rated the song as "sparse funk" on Allmusic and noted that it was also Maitreya's first hit in the United States.

Kathi Whalen of the Washington Post reviewed the song as a mix of 1960s soul and pop at the time, and called it erratic. The song can be heard on the fictional radio station Vice City FM of the video game Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories .

Music video

In the plot of the music video, Sananda Maitreya and his backing band play the song, while in the subplot a couple cuddles in the park and then at home. Together with If You Let Me Stay , the clip was very popular on MTV at the time and was therefore shown frequently there too.

Cover versions

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chart placements: chartsurfer.de . Retrieved June 1, 2018.
  2. ↑ a b Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits . Random House LLC, 2003, ISBN 978-0-8230-7677-2 , p. 697.
  3. ↑ Ed Hogan: Wishing Well . AllMusic.
  4. ↑ Translation on Lyrics-ubersetzung.com
  5. ↑ Jan DeKnock: 'Wishing Well' Finally Pays Off . In: Chicago Tribune , Tribune Company, May 6, 1988. 
  6. ↑ Ben Greenman: What Ever Happened to Terence Trent D'Arby? . In: Condé Nast Publications (ed.): The New Yorker . 4th June 2013.
  7. ↑ Stephen Thomas Erlewine: All Music Guide to Soul: The Definitive Guide to R&B and Soul . Hal Leonard Corporation ,, ISBN 978-0-87930-744-8 , p. 177.
  8. ↑ Kathi Whalen: Terence Trent D'Arby . In: The Washington Post , Nash Holdings LLC, December 21, 1989. 
  9. ↑ Music video on Youtube.com
  10. ↑ Michael Corcoran: In the Ring with Terence Trent D'Arby . In: Spin Media LLC (ed.): Spin . 4, No. 3, June 1988, ISSN  0886-3032 , pp. 45-46.