One’s life doesn’t start until they hear “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” the runaway hit power ballad from Welsh rock icon Bonnie Tyler, who died Wednesday at the age of 75 following complications with treatment for a perforated intestine.
Countless karaoke nights and rainy drives have been scored to Tyler’s inimitable song, so much so that the opening piano notes of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” might precede Tyler’s substantial legacy. But her remarkable 50-year career was marked by other notable classics like “Holding Out for a Hero” and the sensational “If You Were A Woman (And I Was a Man)” — later reworked into Bon Jovi’s catchy but inferior “You Give Love a Bad Name.”
But dig deeper, and one will find that Tyler’s discography is brimming with hits that put her unmistakable rasp to thrilling use. “Ravishing,” the opening track of Tyler’s 1986 album “Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire,” holds a crucial spot on my summer playlist after a recent retrospective. Few singers can turn a song into an epic, cinematic powerhouse the way Tyler could. “Ravishing” is all heady sensuality and winking humor, fused into pure electricity. “It’s just my luck; I don’t have anything to wear,” Tyler coos in the chorus.
No one captured the intoxicating possibilities of the 1980s better than Tyler. For her, every song was a movie and every lyric was a story. And just like she promises in my summer staple, Bonnie Tyler’s huge choruses and blockbuster anthems will be ravishing us until the end of this endless night.
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