Total Eclipse of the Heart


"Total Eclipse of the Heart" is a song recorded by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler. It was written and produced by Jim Steinman, and released on Tyler's fifth studio album, Faster Than the Speed of Night. The song was released as a single by Columbia Records on 11 February 1983 in the United Kingdom and on 31 May 1983 in the United States.
The song became Tyler's biggest career hit, topping the UK Singles Chart, and becoming the fifth-best-selling single in 1983 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the single spent four weeks at the top of the charts, and was Billboard's number-six song of the year for 1983. The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Worldwide, the single has sales in excess of 6 million copies and was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over 1 million copies after its release, updated to Platinum in 2001 when the certification threshold changed. In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's third favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.

Background and composition

After her contract with RCA Records ended in 1981, Tyler found a new manager in David Aspden and after seeing Meat Loaf perform "Bat Out of Hell" live on The Old Grey Whistle Test, approached Meat Loaf's producer Jim Steinman and asked him to be her producer. Tyler visited Steinman in his apartment in New York in April 1982 with her manager, where she was presented with two tracks: "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" and "Goin' Through the Motions". She stated that had she not liked the songs Steinman played for her, he would have rejected Tyler's invitation to collaborate. She returned to his studio apartment weeks later, where Steinman and Rory Dodd performed "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for her. Steinman also hand-picked the recording band for the song, which included Dodd as a featured vocalist.
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" had to be shortened for radio play. Tyler did not believe that the song was radio-friendly at its full length; the song was reduced from seven minutes and two seconds to four minutes and thirty seconds.
The power ballad became Tyler's highest charting song in several countries; peaking at No. 1 in the United States, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. At its peak, it sold 60,000 copies per day, and approximately 6 million copies in total. It won the Variety Club award in the UK for best single of 1983. The song also made number 82 of VH1's top 100 love songs.
Tyler told Record Mirror that she thought the song was about "someone who wants to love so badly she's lying there in complete darkness."
Steinman said in an interview with Playbill, about the inclusion of the song in his 1997 musical Dance of the Vampires:
with 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', I was trying to come up with a love song and I remembered I actually wrote that to be a vampire love song. Its original title was 'Vampires in Love' because I was working on a musical of Nosferatu, the other great vampire story. If anyone listens to the lyrics, they're really like vampire lines. It's all about the darkness, the power of darkness and love's place in the dark...
He also told People magazine that he thought Tyler sounded like John Fogerty, and wrote the song "to be a showpiece for her voice." Tyler described the song as "a challenge ," stating that she " like songs that anybody can sing. I like songs that need a lot of energy." After Steinman presented her with the song she told The Times, "I just had shivers right up my spine.... I couldn't wait to actually get in and record it."
According to Meat Loaf, Steinman had written the song, along with "Making Love Out of Nothing at All", for Meat Loaf's album Midnight at the Lost and Found; however, Meat Loaf's record company refused to pay Steinman and he wrote separate songs himself. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was then given to Bonnie Tyler and "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" to Air Supply. Tyler has denied this claim. "Meat Loaf was apparently very annoyed that Jim gave that to me," Tyler stated. "But Jim said he didn't write it for Meat Loaf, that he only finished it after meeting me."
In an interview with journalist Mick Wall shortly after the release of Meat Loaf's 2006 album , Steinman stated: "I didn't write for anyone but Bonnie." Steinman believed that CBS were expecting him to write something similar to "It's a Heartache", but he had different ideas.

Critical reception

Mike DeGagne from AllMusic retrospectively described "Total Eclipse of the Heart" as "one of the finest ballads ever to hit radio." He noted the "lush instrumentation" and said that Tyler's voice "produced the perfect type of 'desperate lovelorn' effect to suit the romantic lyrics." He described Roy Bittan's piano playing as "dreamy" and described Tyler's voice as "wonderfully gritty." Donald A. Guarisco, also from AllMusic, retrospectively reviewed Faster Than the Speed of Night, and noted the song as an "epic ballad," describing the whole album as "rock at its most melodramatic." Jim Beviglia from American Songwriter said that Tyler's raspy vocals helped to legitimize the "melodrama inherent in the lyrics," and described the song as a "garment-rending, chest-beating emotionally exhausting ballad" that suits the throes of a turbulent relationship.

Music video

The music video for "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was directed by Russell Mulcahy and was filmed on location at the Holloway Sanatorium, a large Victorian Gothic hospital near Virginia Water, Surrey, England. The video features Bonnie Tyler clad in white, dreaming or fantasizing about her students in a boys' boarding school. Young men are seen dancing and participating in various school activities and singing in a choir.
The video received two nominations at the Billboard Video Music Awards in 1983 for Best Performance by a Female and Most Effective Use of Symbolism.
A long-running urban legend is that the boy who appears throughout the video and who shakes Tyler's hand at the end is former Italian footballer Gianfranco Zola. In a 2012 interview, Zola confirmed that he did not appear in the video. As of March 2020, the first upload of the music video on 15 November 2009 had more than 670 million views. The second upload, which was the 4K video, premiered on 26 December 2019 and had over three million views as of June 2020.

Live performances

Since the song's release, Tyler performs "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in every concert she performs. "I sing it much better now than I used to," she told The Huffington Post. "I think my voice is probably not as husky as it was, I think it's mellowed a bit." The song was performed at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards, held at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, on 28 February 1984. Tyler performed a brief, live performance of this song on a Royal Caribbean cruise during the solar eclipse of 21 August 2017.
Live recordings of Tyler performing the song have been released on her live albums Bonnie Tyler Live and Live in Germany 1993. Video performances have also been released on Tyler's DVDs, Bonnie on Tour and the DVD edition of Live in Germany 1993.

Formats and track listings

UK 7" single
  1. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" – 4:29
  2. "Take Me Back" – 5:05
US 7" single
  1. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" – 4:29
  2. "Straight from the Heart" – 3:38
UK 12" single
  1. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" – 6:59
  2. "Take Me Back" – 5:22

    Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from AllMusic :

Weekly charts

YearChartPeak
position
2008
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2011Belgium 17
2011--

Year-end charts

All-time charts

Sales and certifications

Impact

In a 2013 UK survey, the song came first in a list of most popular songs to sing in the shower, above songs by Justin Bieber, Robbie Williams, One Direction and Elton John. In 2015 the song was voted by the British public as the nation's third favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" received substantial media attention during the solar eclipse of 20 March 2015. Tyler's version received a 214% increase of Spotify streams throughout the day. A similar impact was experienced during the solar eclipse of 21 August 2017, when Nielsen Music reported a 503% increase in record sales. Around that time, the song hit number one on the iTunes chart. On 16 August 2017, it was announced that Tyler would perform the song aboard the MS Oasis of the Seas during the total solar eclipse, backed by American dance-rock band DNCE.
In 2014, the Electric Picnic festival announced Bonnie Tyler as part of the lineup. Tickets were already sold out, though Irish rugby player Cian Healy won the Irish Women's rugby team extra tickets for a comic miming video published on Instagram.

Other versions by Bonnie Tyler

Since the original release in 1983, Tyler has re-recorded the song several times for albums and subsequent single releases. Her first and most successful re-recording of the song was released in 2003. Tyler recorded a French/English duet version called "Si demain... " with Kareen Antonn. It peaked at number one in France and Belgium. Tyler released another version of the song in 2004 as a duet with Peter Brocklehurst on his album For You. A solo version of the recording was released on her studio album Wings in the following year.
BabyPinkStar recorded the song with Tyler in a punk/electronic remix version that was released as a single in the UK in January 2007. In 2009, Tyler released another version of the song with Welsh choral group Only Men Aloud! In 2011, Tyler re-recorded the song on an EP named after the song, released by Cleopatra Records. Her most recent recording of the song appears as a bonus track on her album Rocks and Honey.

Nicki French version

released a Hi-NRG remake of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in 1995, which was also a worldwide hit. It originally peaked at No. 54 on the UK Singles Chart in 1994, but reached No. 5 after being re-issued in 1995. In the United States, French's version peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, behind "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" by Bryan Adams and it garnered frequent airplay on AC radio. It enjoyed greater success in Australia, spending four nonconsecutive weeks at No. 2 behind "Here's Johnny!" by Hocus Pocus. Elsewhere, the cover reached number 13 in New Zealand, number 16 in Canada, and peaked within the top 10 of several European countries.
French had made her first dance version recording of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in 1994: she had purchased the Bonnie Tyler original as a teenager in 1983 and reacted negatively to the original suggestion that she remake the song as dance track — "I thought, no, it's too strong a song to go down the dance route. You know, it demeans it almost. But then I thought well, I'll give it a go. And as soon as I heard the track, I thought it actually does work." The singer had been performing in London bands since the age of 12 and was given the chance to record a version when she received a phone call from a fellow British musician. French's first recording of "Total Eclipse of the Heart", made with John Springate of the Glitter Band producing, came to the attention of Mike Stock and Matt Aitken who produced their own recording of the song by French and it was this version which appeared on the UK chart dated 15 October 1994 at No. 54. French would recall: "I just thought oh well that was great...I've Mike Stock and Matt Aitken and it was a dream come true...we tried and I had a great time...And then about two months later I had a call out of the blue from Mike saying the buzz will not die down on this track so we're going to re-record the beginning...and we're going to re-release it at the beginning of 1995."
According to French, her remake of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" became popular in the UK and the US in distinct remixes: "the slower version was the one that actually took a hold in the UK where originally they started with the fast one and then decided to go with the in the same vein as the Bonnie Tyler version sped up when the chorus came in...In the US it was the which was fast all the way through."

Critical reception

editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine said in his review, that French "had a unexpected hit single with her dance-club, house-inflected cover" of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". He added that "although it was treated like a novelty at first, the version was as effective as the original and was a deserved success." Larry Flick from Billboard wrote that she "does a fair imitation of Bonnie Tyler on this bouncy hi-NRG/disco interpretation of the bombastic power ballad. U.K. and European punters already have warmly embraced this twirler, and odds are an even 50-50 for similar success here." In 2017, BuzzFeed listed the song at number 26 in their list of "The 101 Greatest Dance Songs of the '90s". Robbie Daw from Idolator called it a "simmering dance rendition". Music & Media commented that "away is the sandpaper vocal of Bonny Tyler, the edge now comes from the dance context put into the ballad. Needless to say it's an upbeat song anno 1995. Top 10 in the UK."

Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Chart Peak
position

Year-end charts

Sales and certifications

Other cover versions

Westlife version

Irish boy band Westlife recorded a cover of the song on their 2006 album The Love Album. The song would have been released as the album's second single but was cancelled due to their The Love Tour conflicts, though a promo release still reached No. 5 on the radio charts in the Philippines and No. 55 in Czech Republic. Three official remixes have been made for their version as well as a remix done by Jim Steinman, which was ultimately rejected by the record label but has surfaced on the Internet. The song was released as a promotional single in 2007. The Sunset Strippers Radio Mix version of the song charted at number 210 in the Official Russian Top Radio Hits Chart in 26 February 2007. It was composed in the traditional verse–chorus form in Bb major, with Filan and Feehily's vocal ranging from the chords of C4 to C6.
Promotional CD single
  1. "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
  2. "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
  3. "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

    Lissette version

singer Lissette covered the song in Spanish as "Eclipse Total del Amor" in 1985, from their album Caricatura, being their best hit in the Latin American charts. The secondary male voice was sung by Cuban-American singer Jon Secada.

Yuridia version

Mexican singer Yuridia covered the song in Spanish as "Eclipse Total del Amor" from her second studio album Habla El Corazón in 2006. The single peaked at number 36 on the Billboard Latin Pop Songs chart.

L'Aura version

Italian singer L'Aura covered the song in Italian as "Eclissi del cuore" from her third studio album Sei come me in 2010, which was not originally released as a single. One year later, a new version of the song, now a duet with fellow Italian singer Nek was officially released as a single, this duet peaking at number 6 on the Italian charts.

Parody versions

A parody of the song and music video were published in 2009, in what the fans and makers call a "literal video version", which is a type of video that replaces the original song lyrics with humorous lyrics describing the images in the video. Time magazine listed it as the 6th best viral video of 2009. This was also the 6th literal video produced by professional video editor David A. Scott Jr.; the singer who performed for this re-dub was Scott's friend Felisha Noble using the pseudonym Persephone Maewyn.
In 2010, Tyler appeared in an advertisement for MasterCard, performing a short parody of the song with its noted new lyric "Turn around, Neville." She performed the original song in a similar advertisement for Westpac in 2012.
Warby Parker produced a parody video in anticipation of the solar eclipse of 21 August 2017.