How A Misheard Bush Lyric Led To A One-Hit Wonder
Generally speaking, who doesn't love one-hit wonders? They can be good conversation fodder as pop culture aficionados often speculate about what may have happened to them. And if you know a lot about fluke hits and the artists who performed them, you've likely got an advantage over your opponents in the music round of your local bar's next pub quiz. These acts may not have had a follow-up of note, but people will keep talking about the Falcos, Tacos, Right Said Freds, and Biz Markies of the music world — or even groups like Midnight Oil ("Beds Are Burning") that were successful in their respective genre and only fit the bill in the Billboard pop chart sense of the term. Just ask YouTuber Todd in the Shadows, whose "One Hit Wonderland" series talks in detail about — you guessed it right, one-hit wonders.
British rock band Bush is technically not a one-hit wonder — according to their Billboard page, they had two songs place in the Top 40 back in the mid-'90s. They were also mainstays of alternative radio back in the day, thanks to songs such as "Everything Zen," "Comedown," and "Glycerine." Heck, the latter song was so popular that it was parodied on "The Simpsons" – you may remember it from that much-maligned episode where Homer, who is suddenly a young adult in the 1990s, forms a grunge band. However, you may not be aware that "Glycerine" inspired an actual one-hit wonder in a rather unlikely — and unusual — way.
Billie Myers' Kiss the Rain was inspired by Desmond Child mishearing Glycerine
To be fair to Bush and its lead singer, Gavin Rossdale, "Glycerine" was not one of those songs whose lyrics are so aggressively slurred that they're open to all forms of interpretation (or misinterpretation). But it's not every day that you hear the name of a chemical compound repeatedly mentioned in a song's chorus, which is probably why veteran songwriter Desmond Child initially thought Rossdale was singing "kiss the rain."
Speaking to Billboard in 1999, Child recalled hearing "Glycerine" while he was working out at the gym with Jon Bon Jovi and excitedly telling the singer that "Kiss the Rain" was a great tune with a great title — only to be told that he had totally whiffed on the name of the song. Far from being embarrassed by his gaffe, Child thought the misheard lyric made for an "incredibly fresh" title and asked Bon Jovi if he wanted to write a song called "Kiss the Rain." But since Bon Jovi thought the idea was "stupid," Child decided to save it for British singer Billie Myers (pictured), whom he was already working with at the time.
"Kiss the Rain" was a huge hit for Myers, peaking at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1998 and staying on the charts for 31 weeks. It also happened to be her only hit in the U.S., easily making her one of the truest one-hit wonders of the 1990s.