His achievements include selling 53 million albums, eight top ten albums, two number one singles on the Billboard charts, and awards from both the American Music Awards and Grammy Awards.
Michael Bolton had an extensive, though not very successful, career under his real name, Michael Bolotin, before emerging in the mid-'80s as a major soft rock balladeer. Bolton began recording in 1975. This first album was self-titled using his original surname, Bolotin. Early in his musical career, he focused on hard rock. His band, Blackjack, once toured with heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne. He turned up on RCA Records in the mid-'70s singing in a gruff, Joe Cocker-like voice both his own blue-eyed soul songs and cover tunes. Neither record buyers nor critics were much interested by the result. He then became the lead singer in Blackjack, a heavy metal band that made two albums for Polydor at the end of the '70s and the start of the '80s. In 1983, he changed his name to Michael Bolton, signed to Columbia Records as a solo act, and relaunched his career.
Michael Bolton was released in April 1983, and made the Top 100 bestsellers, as did its single, "Fools Game." At the same time, "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," which Bolton had co-written, became a Top 40 hit for Laura Branigan. Nevertheless, Bolton's second Columbia album, Everybody's Crazy (1985), was a commercial flop. His breakthrough came with his third album, The Hunger, released in September 1987. On this album, Bolton abandoned the more hard rock aspects of his style to concentrate on blue-eyed soul singing: both on his own songs, such as "That's What Love Is All About," and on covers like Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." Those two songs became Top 40 hits.
Soul Provider, released in July 1989, turned Bolton into a superstar, reaching the Top Ten, selling four million copies, and spawning five Top 40 singles, including Bolton's number one version of "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," and the Top Ten hits "How Can We Be Lovers" and "When I'm Back on My Feet Again." "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" won Bolton a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Time, Love & Tenderness, released in April 1991, was even more successful, hitting number one, selling six million copies, and featuring four Top 40 hits, including the chart-topping cover of Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman," and the Top Ten hits "Love Is a Wonderful Thing" (later the subject of a successful plagiarism suit brought against Bolton by the Isley Brothers) and "Time, Love and Tenderness."
Bolton won another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, for "When a Man Loves a Woman," but he had to put up with abuse from two camps of detractors at the February 1992 ceremony. Just after Bolton had performed, pre-rock songwriter Irving Gordon won the Song of the Year award for "Unforgettable" and pointedly attacked songs that "scream, yell, and have a nervous breakdown" and singers who "have a hernia" when they sing. Then, backstage, Bolton faced a hostile press corps of critics unhappy with his tendency to copy great soul singers like Redding, Ray Charles, and Sledge. Bolton suggested they apply their lips to a certain part of his anatomy. He further responded with Timeless: The Classics in September 1992, an album made up entirely of cover songs. It went to number one, sold three million copies, and featured a Top 40 hit in Bolton's version of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody." Bolton's next album of original material, The One Thing, came in November 1993. It hit the Top Ten, sold three million copies, and featured the Top Ten hit "Said I Loved You...But I Lied." Bolton released Greatest Hits 1985-1995 in the fall of 1995, which debuted in the Top Ten. The following year, This Is the Time: Christmas Album appeared.
Bolton returned with All That Matters, his first album of new material since 1993's The One Thing, in the fall of 1997. Instead of continuing his success, it was a surprise flop. Not only did it not generate a hit single, it barely cracked the Top 40 and fell out of the charts after 15 weeks. Its lack of success didn't stop Bolton from turning his attention to My Secret Passion, a collection of opera and arias that he released in January 1998. By classical standards, the album was a hit, and the record received a great deal of press and surprisingly good reviews. He supported the two albums with a summer tour which were co-headlined with Wynonna Judd. He voluntarily stepped back for almost four years, disappearing from the public eye until the spring of 2002 when he began promoting Only a Woman Like You, his first album on Jive Records. After a brief sabbatical, he returned with Til the End of Forever, a hybrid new album of seven new recordings and a live greatest-hits concert. In 2006 he released Bolton Swings Sinatra, a 12-song tribute to Ol' Blue Eyes that included a duet with fiancée/actress Nicolette Sheridan.
It would be worth mentioning "Can I Touch You There" proved to be one of the all-time hit love songs from Micheal Bolton from the album Greatest Hits.
www.michaelbolton.com/
Slowly
Michael Bolton Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Slowly I feel my soul consumed
I´m losing myself in you...
Sweetly like a lovers´ dance begins
Gently my fingers brush your skin
Now I´ve found myself in you...
Piece by piece, baby, I come undone, slowly...
CHORUS:
You´re the sun, my universe, my ever shining star
I was born to live and die right here in your arms
I want you to need me, to know you completely
There is only one way I´ll make love to you...
Slowly...
Hold me, don´t let this moment end
Touch me like we´ll never touch again
I live for this time with you, oh
[CHORUS]
Heartbeat to heartbeat the night has begun
Piece by piece, baby, I come undone...
[CHORUS]
Tonight there´s only one way I´ll make love to you... slowly...
Oh oh
(You´re the sun, my universe, my ever shining star), shining star
(I was born to live) I was born to love you
(And die right here in your arms)
I want you to need me, to know me completely
There is only one way I´ll make love to you...
Slowly...
The lyrics to Michael Bolton's song Slowly seem to express the passionate feelings of a lover who yearns to experience an intense intimate connection with their partner. In the first verse, the singer describes how desire is filling the air and how they slowly feel consumed by it. The overwhelming sensations are causing them to lose themselves in their partner. The second verse goes on to describe how the lovers' dance begins sweetly, and the feeling of their skin brushed gently by the singer's fingers makes them feel like they have found themselves in their partner. The chorus then declares the singer's intense love for their partner by describing them as the sun, their universe, their ever-shining star. They were born to live and die in their partner's arms, and there is only one way the singer will make love to them, slowly. The final verse continues the journey of the lovers, with the singer begging their partner to hold them and never let the moment end. The song concludes with the same passionate chorus.
Overall, the song tells a story of intense passion and connection between two lovers who are caught up in the overwhelming force of their love. The singer expresses their desire to be completely known and needed by their partner and to experience every moment of intimacy in a slow, deliberate manner. The use of the slow tempo and the repetition of the word "slowly" create a sense of lingering, building tension, and intense longing that epitomizes the feeling of being consumed by love.
Line by Line Meaning
Slowly desire fills the room
I feel a strong attraction to you that is gradually taking over me.
Slowly I feel my soul consumed
I am being fully engulfed in this connection with you.
I'm losing myself in you...
I am becoming completely absorbed and attached to you.
Sweetly like a lovers' dance begins
Our encounter is gentle and romantic, just like a dance between two lovers.
Gently my fingers brush your skin
My touch is light and delicate as I explore your body.
Now I've found myself in you...
I have fully immersed myself in our connection and am lost in my feelings for you.
Heartbeat to heartbeat the night has begun
Our hearts are beating in sync as we begin our intimate encounter.
Piece by piece, baby, I come undone, slowly...
You are unraveling me, piece by piece, at a leisurely pace.
You're the sun, my universe, my ever shining star
You are the center of my universe and the most important person in my life.
I was born to live and die right here in your arms
Being with you is the purpose of my existence and I can't imagine life without you.
I want you to need me, to know you completely
I crave your love and your understanding of who I am as a person.
There is only one way I'll make love to you... Slowly...
I want to savor every moment with you and make the most of our time together by taking it slow.
Hold me, don't let this moment end
I want to stay in this moment with you forever and never leave.
Touch me like we'll never touch again
Let's make the most of our time together and cherish every touch.
I live for this time with you, oh
This moment with you is what makes life worth living.
Tonight there's only one way I'll make love to you... slowly...
I am devoted to taking our time together and making our intimacy a cherished memory.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT LP, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: DANIEL GRAFTON HILL, MICHAEL BOLTON, RICHARD MARX
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind