Boston - Amanda

"Amanda" is a power ballad by the rock band Boston written by Tom Scholz. The song was released as the first single from the band's third album, Third Stage, in 1986, a 6-year-delay after it was recorded.
Although the song did not have a promotional music video, "Amanda" became the band's highest charting single in the United States and Canada. In the United States, the single topped the Billboard Hot 100 in November, 1986, for two consecutive weeks (the band's only number 1 on the Hot 100), and topped for three consecutive weeks on the Mainstream Rock chart, in October of the same year, while in the latter the single topped RPM magazine's Top Singles and Adult Contemporary charts.
It was the band's first officially released single since 1978 and their first released by MCA Records. The 12-string guitar parts are played by Scholz.
In late 1984 a raw demo of the song was leaked to radio stations via a syndicated satellite feed. Despite the poor audio quality the first new studio Boston song to be heard in 6 years became the most requested song at AOR (Album-oriented rock) stations that played the bootleg. "Amanda" is a relatively rare example of a song that reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in or after the 1980s without having a performance music video made for it. An interview for British television, made while the band was promoting the Third Stage album, does show a couple of minutes of a music video near the end. The band does not appear in that video, which intersperses shots of a model smiling for the camera with special effects footage of the band's spaceship logo flying over the Boston skyline. One shot shows the animated spaceship almost colliding with the John Hancock Tower. However, the single failed to chart on the U.K singles chart.
The song was eventually certified gold by the Canadian Recording Industry Association with sales of over 5,000 units.
This was the first single Boston released after a seven-year layoff. Remarkably, it was the first and only #1 hit for the band, whose songs "Don't Look Back" and "More Than A Feeling" got constant airplay.
The song was written by Boston mastermind Tom Scholz, who was more concerned with crafting meticulous melodic rock than with pouring his heart out. The song is actually very romantic, with Brad Delp singing about telling his girl "I Love You" for the first time, which for most guys happens in a fit of passion, and in the famous Meat Loaf song, leads to a life sentence. This amorous spontaneity is typical of Boston's music, which is all about feeling and living in the moment. "Amanda" was most likely chosen as a name because it scans so well, the perfect word to follow lines like "I'm gonna tell you right away, I can't wait another day..."
Girls' names ending in A have a great history in song, with Rhonda, Layla, Lola and Rosanna preceding Boston's Amanda.
Boston's first album was released in January 1977, and their second in September 1978. They were on schedule for a third album, which they started recording in 1981, when industry politics and creative differences shelved the project, and the band broke up, with guitarist Barry Goudreau releasing a solo album and drummer Sib Hashian joining Sammy Hagar's band.
Before the split, however, Boston put a lot of effort into recording this song, and by the time Third Stage was finally released in 1986, the band had used up about 12,000 hours of studio time. When the album was released, it was on MCA Records (Boston's first two albums were on Epic), and the band was Tom Scholz, Brad Delp, Gary Phil (guitar) and Jim Masdea (drums). "Amanda" was the first track and first single from the album. It was followed by "We're Ready" (#9 US) and "Can'tcha Say (You Believe In Me)," which was their last Top 40 hit, peaking at #20 in 1987.

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