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This CanCon One Hit Wonder Became A Hit Thanks To CKLW
Remember Skylark? If you do, only one song comes to mind: "Wildflower." It hit the top 10 on Billboard in 1973 and was a big hit in Canada, as well.
The tune was inspired by a real life incident, when composer Dave Richardson was waiting for his future wife to go on a date. When she didn't come downstairs after a long wait, he went upstairs to find out what happened to her.
“I knocked on the door but she didn’t answer, so I went in to find her fast asleep on the bed, still in her housecoat and with the towel still wrapped around her head,” he continued. “I guess she was just exhausted after her emotional day. So, I put a blanket over her, being careful not to wake her, and went home and wrote the song in about 15 minutes or so. It was absolutely inspired. I have always felt that all I did was hold the pen in my hand, and that God did the writing.”
But no one would play it, until CKLW answered some requests for the tune and it took off in both the U.S. and Canada.
They could never find a follow-up that worked, and Skylark broke up about a year after their only hit.
1972 Iconic Ballad, Covered by Johnny Mathis, Became a One-Hit Wonder’s Defining Hit
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Re: This CanCon One Hit Wonder Became A Hit Thanks To CKLW
Funny that this song is the subject of a post as fairly recently they talked about its origins on AM740 I believe. Both their background story and the one RadioActive posted are fairly similar, here’s what I found, I must say, this version is somewhat darker! I got this online so keep that in mind:-
“Skylark's 1972 song "Wildflower" is a tender tribute to resilience, emotional release, and the hidden burdens carried by a sensitive person.
Inspiration and Origin
The Real-Life Event: The lyrics started as a poem written by Dave Richardson, a Canadian police officer, about his girlfriend who worked as a nurse.
The Breaking Point: One night, Richardson went to pick her up for a date and found her devastated and in tears because two of her elderly patients had died that day.
The Composition: After she fell asleep, Richardson went home and wrote the poem. His friend David Foster—then an aspiring musician putting together the band Skylark—gave the poem to the band's guitarist, Doug Edwards, who set it to music”.