Angel (Sarah McLachlan song)
| "Angel" | ||||||||
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| Single by Sarah McLachlan | ||||||||
| from the album Surfacing and City of Angels | ||||||||
| Released | November 24, 1998 | |||||||
| Format | CD single | |||||||
| Genre | Pop | |||||||
| Length | 4:30 (album version) 4:00 (radio edit) |
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| Label |
Nettwerk (Canada) Arista (US) Warner Bros. (US) |
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| Writer(s) | Sarah McLachlan | |||||||
| Producer(s) | Pierre Marchand | |||||||
| Sarah McLachlan singles chronology | ||||||||
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"Angel" (sometimes mistitled as "In the Arms of an Angel" or "Arms of the Angel".) The Sarah McLachlan song is about the heroin overdose death of Jonathan Melvoin (1961-1996), the Smashing Pumpkins touring keyboard player as McLachlan explained on VH1 Storytellers. It originally appeared on Surfacing the Canadian singer's 1997 album.
"Angel" was McLachlan's second consecutive top five hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, debuting at number twelve, and then jumping to the top ten the following week, before peaking at number four. It remained at the top ten for nineteen weeks, and for twenty-nine weeks in the top 100. "Angel" was the eighteenth most successful song of 1999.
"Angel" was one of the first songs written for Surfacing. McLachlan said that writing it was easy, "a real joyous occasion", and that "the bulk of it came in about three hours." It was inspired by articles that she read in Rolling Stone about musicians turning to heroin to cope with the pressures of the music industry and subsequently overdosing. She said that she identified with the feelings that might lead someone to use heroin: "I've been in that place where you've messed up and you're so lost that you don't know who you are anymore, and you're miserable—and here's this escape route. I've never done heroin, but I've done plenty of other things to escape." She said that the song is about "trying not to take responsibility for other people's problems and trying to love yourself at the same time".
Released as a single in 1998, "Angel" peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 22, 1999 (after reaching the Top 40 on December 15, 1998), #1 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart, and at #36 on the UK Singles Chart.
The song has had enduring popularity. It is often used to highlight emotional scenes on television shows, and has been featured in a number of soundtracks (including the film City of Angels and TV's Alias, As the World Turns, Cold Case, Dawson's Creek, Early Edition, Felicity, General Hospital, Providence, Strong Medicine, and The Pretender). In addition, it is also used as a song of comfort and healing, most often following tragic events such as the April 1999 Columbine High School massacre and the September 11, 2001 attacks. Furthermore, a large number of video tributes to loved ones uploaded by YouTube users have been set to this song.
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