No self-respecting 80s lover can ignore the evocative power of total eclipse of the heart. The theme par excellence Bonnie Tyler it’s already classic: just turned 40. It was in February 1983 that the artist released the hit which made her the only Welsh artist to obtain a number 1 in the United States.
Written by famed songwriter and songwriter Jim Steinman, it appears on Bonnie’s album Faster than night speed. In general, there is an overall perception that the lyrics speak of love and desire, and that meaning is not lost on anyone. However, there is a deeper meaning behind total eclipse of the heart which was revealed in the decades following the song’s release.
The truth is that Jim Steinman originally wrote the song for a musical version of the vampire movie. Nosferatus from 1992, whose original title was vampire in love. He himself spoke about it in Playbill in 2002: “With total eclipse of the heartI was trying to think of a love song and remembered that I had actually written it to be a vampire love song. Its original title was vampires in love because I was working on a Nosferatu musical. If anyone listens to the lyrics, they really are vampire lines. It’s about darkness, the power of darkness and love’s place in darkness“, recognize.
It was a new musical version of the famous film Roman Polansky from 1967, and includes an alternate version of total eclipse of the heart which received a more than positive response from fans, who quickly recognized the classic.
If we look at the lyrics of the song, it is related to romantic love, but there are dark undertones that make much more sense in the context of vampires in love. The idea of darkness as a constant plays with, as it is believed that vampires are burned by sunlight. They also live forever, so the lines they mention this eternity from tonight can be seen as a reference to these beings.
A suggestive and dark music video
The clip of total eclipse of the heart was directed by Russell Mulcahy, with a screenplay by Jim Steinman, and inspired by the 1976 film Futureworld. With gothic features and themes and filmed at Holloway Sanatorium, it shows Bonnie Tyler dressed in white, having an erotic dream or fantasy with her students.
Bonnie Tyler, in a performance on French television in 1983. / Jean-Jacques BERNIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Young people dance and participate in different activities such as swimming, karate, fencing, football and singing in a choir, mixing images of young men half-naked or in underwear with others who look like angels bright and sinister eyes.
The video ends with a daylight reality check as Bonnie introduces herself to the boys in training, and one of them stares at him with bright eyes for a momentwithout specifying if it is a hallucination of her or if she continues to dream.