Savage Garden “Truly Madly Deeply” hit #1

Truly Madly Deeply Savage Garden

Writer(s): Darren Hayes, Daniel Jones (see lyrics here) Released: March 3, 1997 First Charted: April 6, 1997 Peak: 12 BB, 15 BA, 12 GR, 13 RR, 111 AC, 2 A40, 4 UK, 11 CN, 18 AU, 19 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, 1.2 UK, 2.22 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.7 radio, 532.33 video, 478.86 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Savage Garden was a pop duo consisting of singer Darren Hayes and instrumentalist Daniel Jones which formed in Australia in 1993. The name was inspired by the works of author Anne Rice, FB best known for Interview with the Vampire. They “weren’t part of a cultural wave, and they didn’t belong to any particular genre or scene.” SG “They were two faintly anonymous-looking white guys…and there was nothing especially outwardly interesting about them…The duo made lighter-than-air earworms that would simply become a part of your environment.” SG They only released two albums before splitting in 2001. Their first album, a self-titled release in 1997, went seven times platinum and generated the hits “I Want You” (#4 BB), “To the Moon and Back” (#24 BB), and “Truly Madly Deeply” (#1 BB). Hayes wrote the latter song (originally called “Magical Kisses”) about his wife, but it didn’t have a chorus initially. He eventually came up “with a bit about wanting to stand with you in the mountain, to bathe with you in the sea, to lay like this forever until the sky falls down.” It is “a perfectly composed piece of sentimental gibberish.” SG He rewrote the lyrics in a café the night before the duo was set to record it in the studio FB and retitled the song “Truly Madly Deeply,” after a 1990 Anthony Minghella film. Hayes only wanted to put it on the album as a bonus track but the duo’s producer, Charles Fisher, knew it was a hit. SG Not only did the song top the Billboard Hot 100, but it proved to be a monstrous success on the adult contemporary chart. It set a record, spending 123 weeks on that chart. Two years later, Savage Garden broke their own record when “I Knew I Loved You” spent 124 weeks on the chart. RC Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Savage Garden FB Fred Bronson (2007). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (4th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 861. RC Rod Couch (2015). The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015. Page 312. SG Stereogum (5/23/2022). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia First posted 4/23/224.