American Top 40 PastBlast, 2/13/88: Cher, “I Found Someone”

I spent my 24^th birthday on my own. It was a Saturday, and my roomies were out and about—Jim was most likely at his lab, and John was spending the day with his girlfriend/eventual wife Ann. I went to a movie at the cinema down in Campustown and probably treated myself to a burger and a shake for dinner at the Courier Café, just a couple of blocks away from the apartment. It wasn’t the best of days, but it was far from the worst, too.

The movie I saw that afternoon was Moonstruck. Though I’d be hard-pressed to recount the plot, I think I liked it fine. I wasn’t going to enough flicks then to be able to tell you if Cher deserved her Oscar—the only other nominee for Best Actress I’d seen that year was Holly Hunter in Broadcast News. But my recollection is that it was a very good performance.

Acting was just part of a career resurgence for Cher at that moment, not the last time she’d come back. She’s on this show at #19 with “I Found Someone,” her first song to make AT40 in almost nine years. It’d reach #10 and led the way to several other hits over the next three years. After listening to it more closely last week, I wondered if it’d been written by those masters of the craft Desmond Child or Diane Warren. No, it’s worse—Michael Bolton! Child and Warren were completely or partially responsible for many of Cher’s other hits from this period, however: “We All Sleep Alone” (Child, along with Jon Bon Jovi), “If I Could Turn Back Time” (Warren), and “Just Like Jesse James” (both!). “If I Could Turn Back Time” is my fave of the bunch, and just might show up again in a post later this year.