Heaven Is a Place on Earth

"Heaven Is a Place on Earth"
Single by Belinda Carlisle
from the album Heaven on Earth
B-side"We Can Change"
ReleasedSeptember 14, 1987 (1987-09-14)[1]
StudioOcean Way (Hollywood)
Genre
Length
  • 4:06 (album version)
  • 3:53 (radio edit/7-inch)
  • 5:59 (The Heavenly version/12-inch)
LabelMCA
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Rick Nowels
Belinda Carlisle singles chronology
"Dancing in the City"
(1987)
"Heaven Is a Place on Earth"
(1987)
"I Get Weak"
(1988)
Music video
"Heaven Is a Place on Earth" on YouTube

"Heaven Is a Place on Earth" is a single by American singer Belinda Carlisle from her second studio album, Heaven on Earth (1987). Written by Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley, the song was released as the lead single from the album on September 14, 1987, and it reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 on December 5, 1987, becoming Carlisle's only US chart-topper to date. A month later it peaked at number one in the United Kingdom, where it held the top spot of the UK Singles Chart for two weeks. In Australia it peaked at number 2. It is considered to be Carlisle's signature song.

The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1988, but lost out to Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)". In 2017, ShortList's Dave Fawbert listed the song as containing "one of the greatest key changes in music history".[4]

In 2015, Carlisle re-recorded the song as an acoustic ballad. This version appeared on her album Wilder Shores (2017), which combines acoustic tracks with world beats and traditional Sikh chants.

  1. ^ Strong, M. C. (1995). The Great Rock Discography. Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd. p. 329. ISBN 0-86241-385-0.
  2. ^ Smith, Troy L. (May 13, 2021). "Every No. 1 song of the 1980s ranked from worst to best". Cleveland.com. Archived from the original on June 19, 2021. Retrieved January 30, 2023.
  3. ^ Ewing, Tom (May 10, 2010). "Belinda Carlisle - "Heaven is a Place on Earth"". Freaky Trigger. Archived from the original on August 13, 2022. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
  4. ^ "The 19 greatest key changes in music history". ShortList. October 1, 2017. Archived from the original on January 14, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2018.