In the '80s, while recording radio shows on tape for a radio station that wasn't actually on the dial, I started a short-lived pick hit feature. I chose a song that wasn't a hit that I thought had the potential to make the charts. One pick hit I chose was the Daryl Hall/John Oates tune, "The Reason Why." Looking back, there were at least three reasons why it was naive of me to think it would ever be a hit:
- It wasn't from a current album. It was a re-release of some of the duo's early work.
- As well written and smoothly crooned as it was, it didn't sound like Hall & Oates. Listeners expecting another "You Make My Dreams," "Private Eyes," or "I Can't Go For That" might have respected this reflective ballad about a breakup, but most of them wouldn't have sought it out.
- It was out of step with pop hit sensibilities of the time. On occasion, such songs become hits. Roger Whittaker had a hit in 1975 with his fervently sung rendering of Ron A. Webster's poem, "The Last Farewell." Taco had a smash hit in 1983 with his cover of Irving Berlin's "Puttin' On The Ritz." Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers brought "In The Mood," best known in its Glenn Miller incarnation, back to the public's attention through the medley, "Swing The Mood," in 1989. Such instances, however, are usually few and far between.
