The Rose (song)
Encyclopedia
"The Rose" is a pop song
written by Amanda McBroom
and made famous by Bette Midler
, who performed it in the 1979 movie
, The Rose
. Since then it has been covered by a variety of artists.
, in which it was performed by Midler. The single peaked at #3 on the U.S. Billboard
Hot 100
chart and #1 on the adult contemporary
chart, and it was certified gold
by the RIAA for over half a million copies sold. McBroom won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
, although she was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song
. Midler won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
for "The Rose".
There are two mixes of the song. The single mix features orchestration, while the version in the film (and on its soundtrack) includes an extended introduction while doing away with the orchestration in favor of piano-and-vocals only.
recorded a cover version
in 1983. His version, off his album Dream Maker, was a Number One country hit in U.S. and Canada. Conway Twitty's version was his 30th number one single on the U.S. country chart.
boyband Westlife
and was released as the first and only single from their eighth studio album, The Love Album
. It reached #1 on the UK Singles Chart
for one week in November 2006. This became the group's 14th number-one single. The single has sold over 140,000 copies in Britain so far. The band gave their first live performance of the song on Miss World
2006.
UK CD2
|-
mockingly sang the first line of this song at the beginning of Nirvana
's famed 1992 Reading Festival appearance. On the television show Family Guy
, in the episode "Baby Not on Board
," the Griffins sing an abbreviated version of "The Rose" after Peter suggests they sing a driving song. In the Two and a Half Men
episode City of Great Racks, a version of the song by Bianca Ryan was played during a montage of Rose and Charlie. The song was also briefly played in the movie Napoleon Dynamite during the "Happy Hands Club" scene. The Irish/German "Kelly Family" did a recording of 'The Rose' as well.
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
written by Amanda McBroom
Amanda McBroom
Amanda McBroom is an American singer, songwriter and cabaret performer. One of the songs she has written is "The Rose", which Bette Midler sang in the film of the same name...
and made famous by Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
, who performed it in the 1979 movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, The Rose
The Rose (film)
The Rose is a 1979 American musical drama film which tells the story of a self-destructive 1960s rock star who struggles to cope with the constant pressures of her career and the demands of her ruthless business manager...
. Since then it has been covered by a variety of artists.
Bette Midler version
"The Rose" is featured in the 1979 film of the same nameThe Rose (film)
The Rose is a 1979 American musical drama film which tells the story of a self-destructive 1960s rock star who struggles to cope with the constant pressures of her career and the demands of her ruthless business manager...
, in which it was performed by Midler. The single peaked at #3 on the U.S. Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart and #1 on the adult contemporary
Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks
The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...
chart, and it was certified gold
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
by the RIAA for over half a million copies sold. McBroom won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song was awarded for the first time in 1962 and has been awarded annually since 1965 by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.-1960s:...
, although she was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
. Midler won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance is the latest in a series of awards recognizing superior vocal performance by a female in the pop category, the first of which was presented in 1959. The award goes to the artist...
for "The Rose".
There are two mixes of the song. The single mix features orchestration, while the version in the film (and on its soundtrack) includes an extended introduction while doing away with the orchestration in favor of piano-and-vocals only.
Conway Twitty version
Country singer Conway TwittyConway Twitty
Conway Twitty , born Harold Lloyd Jenkins, was an American country music artist. He also had success in early rock and roll, R&B, and pop music. He held the record for the most number one singles of any act with 55 No. 1 Billboard country hits until George Strait broke the record in 2006...
recorded a cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
in 1983. His version, off his album Dream Maker, was a Number One country hit in U.S. and Canada. Conway Twitty's version was his 30th number one single on the U.S. country chart.
Chart performance
| Chart (1983) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles | 1 |
| Canadian RPM Country Tracks | 1 |
Westlife version
"The Rose" was covered by IrishIreland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
boyband Westlife
Westlife
Westlife are an Irish boy band established on 3 July 1998. They are to disband in 2012. The group's line-up was Nicky Byrne, Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan, and Brian McFadden . The group are the only act in British and Irish history to have their first seven singles peak at number one...
and was released as the first and only single from their eighth studio album, The Love Album
The Love Album (Westlife album)
The Love Album is the seventh studio album and second cover album by boy band Westlife from the Republic of Ireland and it was released on 20 November 2006. The songs on the album centers around the theme of "love". During their Face To Face Tour, the band performed "The Dance". The song was said...
. It reached #1 on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
for one week in November 2006. This became the group's 14th number-one single. The single has sold over 140,000 copies in Britain so far. The band gave their first live performance of the song on Miss World
Miss World
The Miss World pageant is the oldest surviving major international beauty pageant. It was created in the United Kingdom by Eric Morley in 1951...
2006.
Tracklisting
UK CD1- "The Rose" - 3:40
- "Solitaire" - 5:07
UK CD2
- "The Rose" - 3:40
- "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You" - 3:47
- "If" - 2:42
- "The Rose" (Video) - 3:55
Music video
The video for this single was presented in black and white and shows the emotions and events leading up to a couple's wedding procession. The band members are clad in suits and are shown in a checkered-floor room. During the initial period of the video's release, fans were given the opportunity to customise the music video by digitally adding their names to various elements such as the wedding invitation card. A coloured version of the music video was later made available.Chart performance
| Chart (2006) | Peakposition |
|---|---|
| Austrian Singles Chart | 67 |
| European Hot 100 Singles | 4 |
| Irish Singles Chart Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured... |
1 |
| Sweden Singles Chart | 4 |
| Swiss Singles Chart | 85 |
| UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
1 |
|-
Other versions
- AmericanUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
alternative rockAlternative rockAlternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band MudhoneyMudhoneyMudhoney is an American alternative rock band. Formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1988 following the demise of Green River, Mudhoney's members are vocalist and rhythm guitarist Mark Arm, lead guitarist Steve Turner, bassist Guy Maddison, and drummer Dan Peters. Original bassist Matt Lukin left the...
recorded a cover of the song for the 1988 compilation album Sub Pop 200Sub Pop 200Sub Pop 200 is a compilation released in the early days of the Seattle grunge scene . It features songs from Tad, The Fluid, Nirvana, Steven Jesse Bernstein, Mudhoney, The Walkabouts, Terry Lee Hale, Soundgarden, Green River, Fastbacks, Blood Circus, Swallow, Chemistry Set, Girl Trouble, The...
. - Japanese pop singer Ayahi TakagakiAyahi Takagakiis a Japanese voice actress and singer. She had her first major voice acting roles in 2007, voicing Jasmine in Deltora Quest and Lucia Nahashi in Venus Versus Virus....
features this song on her foreign-language cover album, melodiaMelodia (album)Initial critical response to Melodia was average. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 43, based on 9 reviews.-Track listing:-B-Sides and Bonus Tracks:...
.
Cultural references
Kurt CobainKurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
mockingly sang the first line of this song at the beginning of Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
's famed 1992 Reading Festival appearance. On the television show Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
, in the episode "Baby Not on Board
Baby Not on Board
"Baby Not on Board" is the fourth episode of the seventh season of the animated television series Family Guy. It premiered on Fox in the United States on November 2, 2008. The episode features Stewie after he is accidentally left at home when the Griffins head for the Grand Canyon. The family soon...
," the Griffins sing an abbreviated version of "The Rose" after Peter suggests they sing a driving song. In the Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men is an American television sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 22, 2003. Starring Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones, the show was originally about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper; his uptight brother, Alan; and Alan's growing son, Jake...
episode City of Great Racks, a version of the song by Bianca Ryan was played during a montage of Rose and Charlie. The song was also briefly played in the movie Napoleon Dynamite during the "Happy Hands Club" scene. The Irish/German "Kelly Family" did a recording of 'The Rose' as well.