Singer Eddie Money
Songwriter Mick Leeson, Peter Vale, Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry, Phil Spector
Release Date August 1986
You know something? Sometimes, thinking too much about a song is a terrible idea. When you ponder some songs, even ones you ostensibly enjoy, you can start to hate that song. That's what has happened to me with a song that was massive in my childhood. I was 10 years old when I first heard Eddie Money sing Take Me Home Tonight. It was on the radio constantly and the video, filmed in black and white in an empty arena, was in massive rotation on MTV, the true obsession of my young mind.
MTV took up days and hours of my time as a child. I was obsessed with music videos. I was obsessed with music video countdowns, be it the weekly Top 25 Countdown or Dial MTV, the daily Top 8 or 10 countdown to which I committed my parents hard earned money by calling in to make requests and try to push Def Leppard or Poison or Stryper's latest song to the top of the rankings. I never called to vote for Take Me Home Tonight. It wasn't that I didn't like it, rather, it was just never that kind of song.
Take Me Home Tonight is one of those songs from the 80s that seemed to become a hit out of a particular kind of boomer nostalgia. By 1986, Eddie Money had not released a record in 3 years. He'd been a relatively brief arena rock obsession. In 1977 he released his first record and scored two big hits, Baby Hold On and Two Tickets to Paradise. Money found fame quickly but was just as quickly was reduced to a novelty. His subsequent three records struggled and he was in the wilderness for three years before Take Me Home Tonight became a song he was forced to sing.
Take Me Home Tonight was the price Eddie Money had to pay to keep his record deal. He didn't actually like the song. His producer and the record company loved the demo and forced it on Money who then recruited Ronnie Spector to sing on the record. Why was Ronnie Spector sought for the song? Because, as lead singer of The Ronettes, her song "Be My Baby" was at the heart of Take Me Home Tonight. It's the song that the protagonist of Take Me Home Tonight is listening to while begs and cajoles a woman to Take him home Tonight.
So, with the ringing endorsement that Eddie Money didn't like the song and Ronnie Spector had to be begged to sing on it, let's dig into this utterly bizarre, lazy, and creepy song. Take Me Home Tonight could be remixed to be a song about a man who was stalking someone and has crept into their bedroom at night, through a window, uninvited to beg her for sex. It really doesn't take much more than thinking about it to move Take Me Home Tonight into the same uncanny valley where The Police classic Every Breath You Takes has lingered for about 40 years.
