Today, I would like to open the door to the Retro Room once again and listen to G.O sing one of my all-time favorites of his English cover songs, Wildflower. Wildflower, a quintessential love ballad, is going to be the gift that will keep giving here as G.O has covered it so many times over the course of his career. The individual performances in and of themselves will be well worth revisiting, one at a time.
It would be easy to flood one post with all of G.O’s performances of Wildflower but I think each deserves its own moment to shine. For Day 136 of G.O’s service, I will start with his solo stage performance from the MNET Ultimate Live Asia show in Taipei on 21 August 2010.
Looking stunning in white, G.O offered a piece of his heart to the audience with his gentle rendition of Skylark’s beautiful song. Tender as always, genuine and heartfelt, G.O woos with his sweet voice.
The story behind this song is rather simple and beautiful. Skylark was the Canadian band that originally recorded it. David Foster who went on to become a huge music producer was a member of Skylark. His friend, Dave Richardson, was a Canadian police officer. Richardson wrote the song for his then girlfriend at the time who was a nurse. One evening, they were supposed to go out on a date and Richardson went to pick her up. She answered the door seemingly upset, in a bathrobe, hair still wrapped in towel, clearly not ready for an evening out. At the hospital earlier that day, two elderly women she had been caring for passed away.
After telling Richardson the difficult day she had, she thanked him for listening and told him she would get ready for their date. As he waited he watched t.v. and when he noted she was not coming out, he gently knocked on the bedroom door. She did not answer so he quietly went in to find her in bed fast asleep, still in her bathrobe, hair still wrapped in a towel, exhausted from her troubling day. He covered her with a blanket and went home. His love for her and the events of the evening inspired him to write the song. He wrote it in 15 minutes.
Somehow I think G.O would appreciate the story behind the song he loves to sing so very much. I like to think he truly understands the depth of a caring human heart (probably because he owns one) and the absolute fragility of love.
~♥.♥~
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Sweet, always liked it when G.O. sings this song too. And thanks for sharing the story behind it… I really have only ever heard G.O. sing it. And although I had heard of Eric Benet I really only came to appreciate his music through G.O.
And odd as it may seem CNBLUE introduced me to Jason Mraz! A strange way to discover American artists perhaps, but often I prefer the cover by the Korean artist! LOL