The week of August 2, 1986, was a battle of the Peters, with Peter Cetera’s ‘Glory of Love’ overtaking Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ to claim the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

‘Glory of Love’ would spend another week atop the chart before ceding #1 to the world’s hottest star at the time, Madonna. More on that in a couple of weeks.

This song was originally written for the end credits of 1985’s Rocky IV but it was passed over for John Cafferty’s ‘Hearts on Fire.’ Instead, it was used as the theme song of 1986’s The Karate Kid Part II. I guess Cetera’s thinking was “this song is perfect for a cheesy feel-good sports sequel, if I can only find the right one!”

Cetera got the last laugh, because not only did this song reach #1, it was nominated for Best Song at the Academy Awards and Golden Globes. It lost both to Berlin’s ‘Take My Breath Away’ from Top Gun. Ah, the 80s!

[Note: I discovered a discrepancy in my Song of the Day numbering so did a full audit of the site and figured out my stated number is 18 higher than the actual number of Songs of the Day. I have posted a new song every single day for 18+ years, but some of those were mislabeled. In order to true up the count, without renumbering 6,600 historical posts, I’m going to double up on the next 18 song numbers (adding an “a” to each dupe). I’ll be synced up moving forward, so my eventual 7,000th Song of the Day will truly be #7,000.]

Old songs. Great memories.
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