Peak
40
Weeks
12
Score
883
Chart Year
1982
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Written by band members Joe Lynn Turner, Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover, this song is about a guy whose lover has left him out in the cold. Turner wrote the lyric after spotting a despondent Glover and asking him what was wrong. Said Glover: "She left me stone cold." "I heard the story of what happened - the usual divorce proceedings - and I went back to my room and wrote the lyric," Turner said in the book The Other Side of Rainbow. "I knew I had something with that mood that we were putting down." While the focus of many Rainbow songs was on Blackmore's guitar, Joe Lynn Turner's vocals are the high point of this track. Turner was Rainbow's third lead singer, following Ronnie James Dio and Graham Bonnet. In America, this is Rainbow's most popular song. It rose to #1 on the Modern Rock chart and was also their only song to crack the Top 40 on the Hot 100. Years later, the song made its way onto the playlists of many classic rock stations. Much of the song's American success came thanks to MTV, which was just a year old when this song was released. Rainbow, like many British bands, had been making videos for a while, and for "Stone Cold" they made an attention-grabbing clip with smoke, mirrors and mannequins. It was directed by Edd Griles, who produced the first MTV Video Music Awards.
Every night I have the same old dream 'Bout you and me and what's in between So many changes, so many lies Try to run, try to hide From everything that I feel inside But I can't escape you or your frozen eyes Searching in the darkness Fading out of sight Love was here and gone like a thief in the night Stone cold And I thought I knew you so well Stone cold Can't break away from your spell Another dark and empty night If I was wrong, I want to make it right But you are so distant, so far away Your words like ice fall on the ground Breaking the silence without a sound Oh, familiar strangers with nothing to say Searching in the darkness Fading out of sight Love was here and gone like a thief in the night Stone cold And I thought I knew you so well Stone cold, yeah I can't break away from your spell You leave me stone cold Searching in the darkness Fading out of sight Love was here and gone like a thief in the night Stone cold And I thought I knew you so well You're stone cold, yeah I can't break away from your spell Stone cold, baby I thought I knew you so well You're stone cold, ice cold Can't break away from your spell You put me in the deep freeze Oh baby, don't you leave me Stone cold, you're leavin' me cold (stone cold) Can't break away from your spell Stone cold And I thought I knew you so well Stone cold Can't break away from your spell Stone cold And I thought I knew you so well Stone cold Can't break away from your spell Stone cold And I thought I knew you so well Stone cold
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Apr 24, 1982 | 85 | 41 |
| 2 | May 1, 1982 | 73 | 53 |
| 3 | May 8, 1982 | 65 | 61 |
| 4 | May 15, 1982 | 55 | 71 |
| 5 | May 22, 1982 | 50 | 76 |
| 6 | May 29, 1982 | 46 | 80 |
| 7 | Jun 5, 1982 | 42 | 84 |
| 8 | Jun 12, 1982 | 42 | 84 |
| 9 | Jun 19, 1982 | 40 | 86 |
| 10 | Jun 26, 1982 | 72 | 54 |
| 11 | Jul 3, 1982 | 88 | 38 |
| 12 | Jul 10, 1982 | 92 | 34 |