Good Tunes: Seal, 'Kiss from a Rose'

When I think about music in 1995, I think about Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose.”

It was, IMHO, the year’s big hit. Originally part of Seal’s self-titled 1994 album, “Kiss from a Rose” gained fame as part of the Batman Forever soundtrack (and is probably the film’s only redeeming quality). “Kiss from a Rose” won Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 1996 Grammy’s. (I did not know the differences between Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Check out the definitions and differences provided on the Record of the Year’s Wikipedia page.)

For me, it’s soaring and comforting, and conjures images of sunset and golden hour; I think of the sunset the night we started our family vacation to Colorado. I remember singing along to it with three or four other boys, riding home from a church camping retreat sometime that September. It was the hit everybody loved. It screams summer of ‘95 for me.

(To be fair to Batman Forever, it has been forever since I watched it. I’ve never been a big fan of superhero movies, but I remember how significant and important the Batman movies were in the early and mid-nineties, especially Batman Returns and Batman Forever. A friend told me that when Batman Forever opened in the Iowa City area, the line of people waiting to see it circled around the fourplex three times. Interestingly, I have never watched either one of the Michael Keaton Batman movies, or any of the other Batman movies, so Batman Forever is the only Batman movie I have ever seen.)