Tom: This has been going round my head lately, Tim, but I’m sending it to you for another reason. Rather than asking you to guess what it sounds like, I’m going to ask: who does it sound like?
Tom: Not in the voice, but in the style: the instruments, the melody, those backing singers. Any of it sound familiar?
Tim: My main thought would be Bonnie Tyler – the chorus line at 2:30 gets me right into Total Eclipse of the Heart, for starters – though to be honest it’d fit with with any number of power ballads from an ’80s club night – the piano in particular strikes a Meat Loaf line.
Tom: I was hoping you’d say that. Bonnie Tyler and Meat Loaf are exactly right, because this was written by the legendary Jim Steinman, best known for “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and Meat Loaf’s “Bat out of Hell” album, among a lot of other things. (In fact, Total Eclipse kept this song from the US Number 1 spot.)
Tim: Well then that would make sense. And that’s a hell of a CV – I see he also turned up on Take That’s Never Forget and Boyzone’s No Matter What.
Tom: No Matter What: lyrics by Steinman, music by Lloyd Webber. Seriously.
Tim: Wait, what? How – how on Earth did I not know that?
Tom: I despise that song, incidentally, but what I love about the Air Supply track is that, despite it not being a song that gets as much recognition as Total Eclipse or any Meat Loaf track, it’s still clearly the same formula, and it’s still a really, really good song.