"Wishing Well" is a song recorded by Terence Trent D'Arby. The second single from the 1987 album Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby, the song reached number one on both the Soul Singles Chart and the Billboard Hot 100 on May 7, 1988. "Wishing Well" was certified "Gold", indicating sales of 500,000, by the Recording Industry Association of America in October 1991. Written by D'Arby and Sean Oliver, D'Arby said "Wishing Well" was written "when I was in a half-asleep, half-awake state of mind", and that he "liked the feel of the words".Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 paired with D'Arby in production of the song, which was released on CBS Records. Once released, "Wishing Well", along with D'Arby's debut single "If You Let Me Stay", went into "heavy rotation" on MTV. D'Arby performed the song live at the 30th Annual Grammy Awards, where he lost the Grammy Award for Best New Artist to Jody Watley. When the single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, it had charted for 17 weeks, the longest progress to number one in the US charts since Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" in 1983.
Ben Greenman of The New Yorker credits "Wishing Well", along with other D'Arby songs, with "[bringing] soul music into the eighties". Writing about D'Arby for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine called the song "sparse funk", and noted how "Wishing Well" was his first major hit in the United States. Kathi Whalen of The Washington Post credited the song's chart success to D'Arby's combination of "'60s soul and pop on top", and called "Wishing Well" "bouncy".
Last Updated: June 12, 2021
