Terence Trent D'Arby - Wishing Well
Wishing Well is a song by Terence Trent D'Arby.
The second single from the 1987 album Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby, the song reached number one on both the Soul Singles Chart and the Billboard Hot 100 on May 7, 1988.
"Wishing Well" was certified "Gold", indicating sales of 500,000, by the Recording Industry Association of America in October 1991.
Written by D'Arby and Sean Oliver, D'Arby said "Wishing Well" was written "when I was in a half-asleep, half-awake state of mind", and that he "liked the feel of the words".
Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 paired with D'Arby in production of the song, which was released on CBS Records.
Once released, "Wishing Well", along with D'Arby's debut single "If You Let Me Stay", went into "heavy rotation" on MTV.
D'Arby performed the song live at the 30th Annual Grammy Awards, where he lost the Grammy Award for Best New Artist to Jody Watley.
When the single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, it had charted for 17 weeks, which made it the slowest song to reach number one since "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" in 1983.
Ben Greenman of The New Yorker credits "Wishing Well", along with other D'Arby songs, with "bringing soul music into the eighties".
Writing about D'Arby for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine called the song "sparse funk", and noted how "Wishing Well" was his first major hit in the United States.
Kathi Whalen of The Washington Post credited the song's chart success to D'Arby's combination of "'60s soul and pop on top", and called "Wishing Well" "bouncy".
The song appears in Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City's fictional radio station Vice City FM.
The lyrics:
Kissing like a bandit stealing time
Underneath the sycamore tree
Cupid by the hour sends valentines
To my sweet lover and me
Slowly but surely
Yours appetite is more than I knew
Sweetly, softly
I'm falling in love with you
Wish me love a wishing well to kiss and tell
A wishing well of butterfly tear
Wish me love a wishing well to kiss and tell
A wishing well of crocodile cheers
Hugging like a monkey see, monkey do
Right beside a riverboat gambler
Erotic images float through my head
I wanna be your midnight rambler
Quickly but quickly
The blood races through my veins
Quickly, loudly
I wanna hear those sugar bells ring
Wish me love a wishing well to kiss and tell
A wishing well of butterfly tears
Wish me love a wishing well to kiss and tell
A wishing well of crocodile cheers
Wish me love a wishing well to kiss and tell
A wishing well of butterfly tear, come on
Wish me love a wishing well to kiss and tell
A wishing well of crocodile cheers
I feel like going on
I feel like going on
Come on, come on
Erotic images float through my head
Your midnight rambler, baby
Take it
For you anywhere
I don't know I don't care
But all those years
I wanna be your midnight rambler, baby
