![]() ![]() ![]() On the word "shadow" her voice cracks like a flash of lightning. "Together we can take it to the end of the line / Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time," Tyler roars. After the first chorus, a maelstrom of drums and explosions take the song to apocalyptic heights. "I don't know what to do / And I'm always in the dark / We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks," Tyler laments, singing about a romantic infatuation that overwhelms her to the point of collapse. Dodd, who delivers the haunting "turn around" vocal parts, describes the marriage of his plaintive tenor with Tyler's raspy howl as "Beauty and the Beast" but in reverse. It is easy to understand why: the full-length album cut is seven minutes of unfettered bombast. The song is considered one of history's most iconic "power ballads", often ranking highly in retrospective listings alongside such evergreens as Heart's Alone, Journey's Faithfully, and Foreigner's I Want to Know What Love Is. Is it time to reconsider Britney's legacy? He has described Total Eclipse of the Heart as a "fever song" about the darker, obsessive side of love and as "an exorcism you can dance to." "They never in a million years thought that this would come off." But Steinman agreed to work with Tyler, hearing untapped potential in her voice, which he compared in its rasping power to Janis Joplin. "The record company at the time thought I was mad," she tells BBC Culture. Impressed by his work composing and producing the Meat Loaf opus Bat Out of Hell (1977), Tyler asked CBS Records for Steinman to collaborate with her on her next album. Tyler was an unlikely candidate for this level of chart dominance, her career having flatlined since her 1977 hit It's a Heartache. It topped the UK charts, unseating Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, was an even bigger hit in the US, and soared to number one in several countries. Released 40 years ago in February 1983, this gothic aria became an unprecedented international success that pushed the boundaries of melodrama in pop music. "Jesus! Where's the kitchen sink?" Dodd cried, when he heard the final, jaw-dropping mix of the track. One day in the summer of 1982, Canadian vocalist Rory Dodd was summoned to the Power Station recording studio in New York City to lend his vocals to a song, written and produced by his colleague and friend Jim Steinman for Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler. ![]()
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