Amanda (Boston song)


"Amanda" is a power ballad by 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, six years 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, 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.

Reception

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 six years became the most requested song at AOR 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. Despite being released in that country, the single failed to chart on the UK singles chart.
The song was eventually certified gold by the Canadian Recording Industry Association with sales of over 5,000 units.

Charts

Year-end chart Rank
US Top Pop Singles 50