1986Released
3:31

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Take Me Home Tonight. By Songfacts®.

This song is based on The Ronettes' 1963 hit "Be My Baby," and features their lead singer, Ronnie Spector, on the chorus performing her famous line, "Be my little baby." The song was reworked by the songwriters Michael Leeson and Peter Vale, whose other songs include "Would I Lie To You" by Charles & Eddie and "One Man Woman" by Sheena Easton. The song is about a guy who is in lust with a girl and is trying to convince her to take him home.

With this song, Ronnie Spector returned to the spotlight for the first time in two decades. A groundbreaking artist, Spector was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with The Ronettes in 2007, but by 1986 she was long out of the spotlight. Spector's last Top 40 hit with The Ronettes was "Walking in the Rain" in 1964; in 1971 she made #77 with a song written by George Harrison called "Try Some, Buy Some," but that would be her last chart entry until "Take Me Home Tonight." The song not only introduced Spector to a new generation, but also got her on MTV for her first time, as the clip got ample airtime on the network. Spector released a solo album the following year called "Unfinished Business," but she never scored another hit.

Ronnie Spector appeared in the video, mostly in silhouette form, but a financial dispute nearly kept her out of it. The video was directed by Nick Morris, who helmed popular clips for Europe ("The Final Countdown") and Paul Young ("Everytime You Go Away"). According to Morris, Spector's boyfriend/manager told her not to be filmed until they received a payment he felt they were owed, so Morris said they would just use his wife, Fiona O'Mahoney, who was also the producer on the shoot, in place of Spector, which conceivably could work because most of Spector's scenes were shot in shadows. In our interview with Morris, he explained: "We put Fiona in the dress that Ronnie was going to wear, we put a wig on her, and we started doing a camera test where Ronnie and her manager could see it. Her manager was going, 'They're just bluffing, Ronnie, they're not going to do it. They're not really going to do it, Ronnie.' And Ronnie was like, 'They are going to do it and I'm not going to be in the video!' In the end, she saw sense, and she performed it. The whole crew applauded. But that was a wild and wacky thing to do, and maybe a bit cruel to do, but we were English in Los Angeles making our third or fourth music video, and if we'd come away having paid Ronnie extra money, that would have crashed our budget. But my producer didn't get to be in the video."

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Take Me Home Tonight.
C♯Key
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
133BPM

Album

The album Take Me Home Tonight is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Take Me Home Tonight.
Columbia
(P) 1986 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT

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