Throwback Thursday ‘I Believe’ by Blessid Union of Souls (1995)

Okay, so I usually don't do ballads for Throwback Thursday because listeners tend to not like it, but ya know what? This song is too good and speaks to a lot of things going on right now, so I had to do it.

"I Believe" by Blessid Union of Souls was from their album, Home.

The band is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio.

"I Believe" touches on societal issues like violence, drug use, greed, and racism.

According to Wikipedia, "Eliot Sloan stated in an interview with The Celebrity Cafe that he wrote the song about his relationship with 'Lisa', a girl he once dated. Lisa's father allegedly threatened to cut off her college tuition if she continued to see Eliot. They said good-bye and went their separate ways. He said that he still very much missed her, and placed a message in the liner notes of Home: 'Lisa, give me a call sometime just to say hello, my number is still the same.'"

Sloan continued in that interview, "A lot of people have been in relationships where their parents or their friends didn't want them seeing this other person for whatever reason, whether it was race, religion or background, or whatever. We just really believe that love is the answer to this stuff. Without it trying to sound hokey or whatever that's just an honest to good answer. I'm a witness to that. I get along with anybody who's open-minded, and who has an open heart to things. That's the same with everybody in this band. We've all got different backgrounds and we all agree on the same things. This is just one of them. There doesn't have to be this much tension out there. There really doesn't. We feel like it's very unnecessary in a lot of situations. We just wanted to install some hope in people and hopefully, people will listen to the lyrics and get that out of the song."

"I Believe" is the band's most successful and highest-charting song. It reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, #5 on US Adult Contemporary chart and #2 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart.

On Billboard's 1995 Year-End Chart, the song was at #27.