Total Eclipse Of The Heart
I read that Bonny Tyler's 1980 hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart," was inspired by 'Wuthering Heights.'
Does anybody know if that is true, & if it is, how did it inspire the song?
Saw your post and went to songfacts and found this:
For those confused by the lyrics it might help to know that the writer was inspired by Catherine and Heathcliff's relationship in the novel "Wuthering Heights". Theirs was an intense and passionate--but also self destructive and toxic--relationship. The song is about a love affair that draws you in and won't let you go, even though it would be healthy to get away.
The "total eclipse of the heart" lines refer to the lover overshadowing one's life so much that the sun's light is blocked out, plunging the person's heart in darkness. If you wanna be technical/scientific, imagine a solar eclipse with the sun's light being blocked from reaching earth/heart by the moon/toxic lover.
Very interesting. Thank you for your response.
I've been very curious about this, ever since I read that.
The wikipedia page on that song says something completely different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Eclipse_of_the_Heart
Steinman said in an interview with Playbill, "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 dark..."[7] He also told People magazine that he thought Tyler sounded like John Fogerty, and wrote the song "to be a showpiece for her voice."[8] Tyler described the song as "a challenge [to sing]," stating that she "[doesn't] 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."
The song was written and produced by Jim Steinman. share
I'm not sure if anybody will read this anymore, but evidently Wuthering Heights was a great inspiration for Steinman in general terms; so much so that there is a modernized movie version of the novel from 2003, that was produced by him and features some of his songs.
shareWell that might be true, but he said himself what inspired the song Total Eclipse of the Heart, and it was not Wuthering Heights.
Edited to add after doing a tiny bit more research: It did, however inspire another song. From a wikipedia article on a 2003 version of Wuthering Heights: "Wuthering Heights is a modern-day adaptation of the classic novel that aired on MTV in 2003 and was later released on DVD. It stars Erika Christensen, Mike Vogel, Christopher Masterson, Katherine Heigl, John Doe and Aimee Osbourne. The screenplay was by Max Enscoe and Annie deYoung, from an original screenplay by Jim Steinman and Patricia Knop. Although set in California, the filming location was Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico.
The executive producer was Jim Steinman. It features his song "The Future Ain't What It Used to Be", which originally appeared on Original Sin, the concept album he wrote and produced for Pandora's Box. Wuthering Heights is one of Steinman's favourite books, and it was the inspiration for his song "It's All Coming Back to Me Now." "