Bonnie Tyler 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart'

Chart peak: 1 (2 weeks)

YouTube

Turn around
This was the first ever US Number One by a Welsh artist
Turn around
It was the first single by a British woman to top the UK and US charts
Turn around
She was the first woman to spend her first ever album chart week at Number One...

If ever a record could claim what I might now call the KC defence this is it, with bells on - literally in fact. One of the many songs I couldn't understand at the time and am oddly reassured to note that I can't now either, because it doesn't really make any sense. It is of course a Jim Steinman production and composition, and seems almost the ultimate product of this approach (perhaps alongside 'Bat Out Of Hell') with no room left for simplicity, understatement or indeed comprehensibility. It's a song that hints at desperation, but expressed in such an over-the-top bombastic way as to make that almost seem like a strength. Well, perhaps that's not quite the phrase, but it's obvious that this was no place for half-measures - Westlife's version fails for exactly this reason, because they just can't go far enough. Unlike some songs that are crushed by overproduction, the song really is in the overproduction and in Tyler's sincerely excessive vocal. It's only logical that the compilers placed this at the end of a side, because it almost demands a moment's respite afterwards. Particularly if they used the lengthier video edit rather than the slightly shorter version that tends to appear on compilations.

Does all that mean I like it? Well not really. But I can sort of respect it as a piece of work, and as something that does exactly what it intended to.

By the way, I can't confirm this, but I'm sure I remember a Top Of The Pops performance where she actually started the song facing away from the audience, so she could do the "Turn around" bit. She certainly did appear on the show - there's a different version on YouTube - and that's just as well because the video was probably a little bit too scary for that time of day.

Available on: Total Eclipse - The Bonnie Tyler Anthology