Need You Tonight

"Need You Tonight"
Single by INXS
from the album Kick
B-side	"I'm Coming (Home)"
Released	September 23, 1987 June 1, 2005 (remixes)
Format	CD single 7" single
Genre	Rock
Length	3:00
Label	Atlantic records
Writer(s)	Andrew Farriss, Michael Hutchence
Producer	Chris Thomas
INXS singles chronology
"Good Times" (1987) "Need You Tonight" (1987) "Devil Inside" (1988)

"Need You Tonight" is the fourth song on INXS's 1987 album Kick as well as the first single from the album. It was also the only single of the band's to reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also achieved their highest peak at number two on the UK Singles Chart. While it would arguably become the band's signature song, it was one of the last songs recorded for the album.

Background

In INXS's official autobiography, INXS: Story to Story, Andrew Farriss said that the famous riff to the song appeared suddenly in his head while waiting for a cab to go to the airport to fly to Hong Kong. He asked the cab driver to wait a couple of minutes while he grabbed something from his motel room. In fact, he went up to record the riff and came back down an hour later with a tape to a very annoyed driver. This riff was later described as sounding like a cross between Keith Richards and Prince.

The song is a much more electronic track than most of the band's material before or after, combining sequencers with regular drum tracks and a number of tracks of layered guitars. To approximate the sound on the recorded track, the band often utilizes click tracks for a frequent synthesizer chord as well as rim shots heard throughout the song.

On the Kick album, the song is linked to the next song, entitled either "Mediate" or "Meditate" depending on the pressing of the album. On some compilations, the two tunes appear together and on others, only "Need You Tonight" appears (rarely, if ever, has "Mediate" appeared on its own).

Music video

The song is also notable for its promotional music video which combined live action and different kinds of animation. Directed by Richard Lowenstein, the video was actually "Need You Tonight / Mediate", as it combined two songs from the album. Lowenstein claimed that the particular visual effects in "Need You Tonight" were created by cutting up 35mm film and photocopying the individual frames, before re-layering those images over the original footage.

For "Mediate", it segues into a tribute to Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues". The members flip cue cards with words from the song, followed by a Kirk Pengilly saxophone solo. Beneath the lyric "a special date" in the "Mediate" portion of the video, the cue card shown reads "9-8-1945". This refers to the date 9 August, 1945 which was the date the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. As the date is in the Australian format, with the day first and month second, American observers sometimes confuse the date for 8 September, 1945.

The video won five MTV Video Music Awards including Video of The Year and was ranked at number twenty-one on MTV's countdown of the 100 greatest videos of all time.^[1]

Track listings

7" single

1. "Need You Tonight" — 3:01
2. "I'm Coming (Home)" — 4:54

CD single

1. "Need You Tonight" — 3:01
2. "Mediate" — 2:35
3. "I'm Coming (Home)" — 4:53

Charts

¹ Static Revenger/Koishii & Hush Mixes
² Remixes

Rogue Traders Remix

"One of My Kind"
Single by Rogue Traders vs. INXS
from the album We Know What You're Up to
Released	February 23, 2003 (2003-02-23) (Australia)
Format	CD single 12" Single
Recorded	2002
Genre	Dance
Length	3:20 (Radio Edit) 4:18 (Album Version)
Label	Vicious Grooves
Writer(s)	James Ash
Producer	James Ash
Rogue Traders vs. INXS singles chronology
Give in to Me (2002) "One of My Kind" (2003) Stay? (2003)

Rogue Traders covered and remixed "Need You Tonight" and released it as a single in Australia. The song was renamed One Of My Kind, where it reached #10 on the Australian Top 100 Singles Chart, becoming their first top-10 hit. "One of My Kind" is the second single released by the Rogue Traders for their debut album We Know What You're Up To. Because it was the only hit single from the album, the band was publicly considered one-hit wonders until "Voodoo Child" reached #4 in 2005.

Track listings

Maxi CD Single

1. "One of My Kind" (Radio Edit)
2. "One of My Kind" (Club Mix Edit)
3. "One of My Kind" (Phunk Remix)

12” Vinyl

1. "One of My Kind" (12" Mix)
2. "One of My Kind" (Radio Edit)
3. "One of My Kind" (Dub Mix)

Music video

The music video is set in a dance party where the lizard on the single cover wanders around looking for a girl of his kind. He finds one looking lonely. The two sit together and he singles the line 'You're One of My Kind' before the video ends.^[8]

Charts

The single spent 15 weeks in the charts, 9 of which were in the top 50.^[9][10] The single also topped the ARIA Dance chart.

Other cover versions

• Canadian singer Jacynthe covered this song in 2003 for her album Seize the Day.
• Lostprophets covered this song on The Fake Sound of Progress CD single.
• Portuguese band The Room 74 covered this song in 2005 on their album Metrosexual, giving it an all new Funk sound.
• Australian singer Gilli Moon covered this song in 2003 on her album Woman as a much slower arrangement.
• A cappella group Ac Rock covered this song in 1999 on their album Acapellago
• Cassettes Won't Listen covered the song for the Guilt by Association Vol. 2 compilation, released by Engine Room Recordings in November of 2008.^[11]
• DJ McSleazy produced a memorable mashup of this song, mixing it up with Neneh Cherry's "I've Got You Under My Skin". The resultant mashup has been entitled "Got your cherry tonight", and was aired on MTV.
• Crimpshrine has a live cover of this song on the Benecia By the Bay Compilation.
• Rock band Dirtbombs have performed the song live.
• General Hospital's Nathan Parsons sand this song as a karaoke version at a reception on the show September 29, 2009.

References