Kiss from a Rose

"Kiss from a Rose" is a song from Seal's second eponymous album. The song was first released as a single in July 1994. Re-released in 1995, it was included on the Batman Forever film soundtrack, helping it top the charts in the United States and Australia. It also reached the top 10 in several other countries, including Canada, France, Iceland and Norway. At the 1996 Grammy Awards, it won awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.[1]

"Kiss from a Rose"
Single by Seal
from the album Seal II and Batman Forever: Music from the Motion Picture
B-side
Released
  • 18 July 1994 (UK)
  • 6 June 1995 (US and Canada)
  • 3 July 1995 (UK re-release)
Recorded1994
Genre
Length
  • 4:47 (album version)
  • 3:38 (radio edit)
Label
  • ZTT
  • Warner Bros.
Songwriter(s)Seal
Producer(s)Trevor Horn
Seal singles chronology
"Prayer for the Dying"
(1994)		 "Kiss from a Rose"
(1994)		 "Newborn Friend"
(1994)
1995 re-release
Batman Forever soundtrack single

Background

"Kiss from a Rose" was written in 1987, several years prior to the release of Seal's eponymous debut album from 1991. After writing the song, Seal felt "embarrassed by it" and "threw the tape in the corner." Seal did not present it to producer Trevor Horn until the recording sessions for Seal II. In 2015, Seal said of the song: "To be honest, I was never really that proud of it, though I like what Trevor did with the recording. He turned that tape from my corner into another 8 million record sales and my name became a household name."[2]

"Kiss from a Rose" was the second single taken from the Batman Forever film soundtrack, and topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for one week in August 1995. It also went to number four on the UK Singles Chart, where it had originally reached number 20 in 1994. It also was nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Song from a Movie in the 1996 edition.[3]

Seal talked about the long, strange journey that the song went through on The Brian McKnight Show season finale that aired 30 May 2010. He described how the song initially dropped out of the charts shortly after its release. Joel Schumacher subsequently called Seal, and requested use of the song to play over a love scene between the characters played by Nicole Kidman and Val Kilmer in Batman Forever. Although the song was eventually not incorporated into this scene, it was instead used to play over the end credits; Seal believes this change contributed to the song's eventual popularity.

Music video

Two versions of the music video were produced:

  • The original version is set in a photographic studio and was co-directed by Matthew Rolston and William Levin. The 1966 film Blowup was heavily referenced in the video.
  • The second version was directed by Joel Schumacher and has Seal performing the song beside the Bat-Signal, interspersed with clips from the film Batman Forever, with one clip from Batman Returns. This is the more well known video of the song. The director of photography of this version of the music video was Neil Abramson.

Track listing

Between all the formats of the single release, bonus tracks include the non-album tracks "The Wind Cries Mary" (a Jimi Hendrix cover) and "Blues in 'E'"; remixes of "Kiss from a Rose" by Adamski (who produced the original version of "Killer"); and remixes of album track "I'm Alive" by Steve Fitzmaurice and Sasha with BT.

  • "Kiss from a Rose" (radio edit) – 3:38
  • "Kiss from a Rose" (album version) – 4:47

Charts and sales

Cover versions

"Kiss from a Rose" featured in season 2, episode 7 ("A Bottle of Jean Nate") of Shameless.[62]

In season 5, episode 7 ("The Gang Wrestles for the Troops") of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Dee plans to greet a returning US soldier she's been chatting with online with her alias "Desert Rose" by bringing roses, dressing up in a red dress with green stockings, and playing Seal's "Kiss from a Rose." When Dee runs away because he's in a wheelchair, Frank ends up playing the song and giving the soldier a gift of jean shorts for his services and salutes him, making the moment awkward for the soldier.[63]

In season 3, episode 7 of Community, Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) and dean Craig Pelton (Jim Rash) are seen singing "Kiss from a Rose". Later in the episode the rest of the characters make fun of Jeff since the dean has tweeted their duet.[64]

A panpipes version of the song is prominently featured in the Ugandan action movie Who Killed Captain Alex?.

gollark: You'll memorize stuff naturally if you actually *use* them a lot.
gollark: Well, memorizing things is mostly stupid nowadays.
gollark: They more encourage obeying when anyone is watching and otherwise ignoring the rules.
gollark: Anyway, I don't think instilling more obedience to authority is a particularly *good* thing, and in any case schools are... kind of inconsistent at that.
gollark: We actually had a history teacher who spent a few lessons talking about Brexit (back in 2016), which was interesting.

See also

References
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