I got into a discussion about this song in the comments section of
’s latest Tune Tag post with . So it had to be the next song of the day.
Danger Zone, of course, is the big song from the movie Top Gun. Because of the size of the film the producers had 300 songs to choose from but none of them felt right when played against the dailies of the opening scene. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer asked the soundtrack producer Giorgio Moroder to write something. He drafted writer Tom Whitlock to help him and this song was the result.
Then the search for the artist to perform it began. Joe Pizzulo did the demo but Columbia records, who was distributing the soundtrack, insisted it be someone on their label. The demo wasn’t all in vain - here’s a section of it being used the next year in the Aaron Spelling production Cracked Up.
The song was then passed along to Jefferson Starship, Toto, Corey Hart, and Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon. All declined for various reasons. In the meantime, Kenny Loggins is in a studio nearby recording his song for the film, Playing With The Boys. Moroder heads over and asked him to do it and he agrees without even seeing/hearing the song. He does a little tweaking to the lyrics and a legend is born.1
Tony Scott, the director of the film, also directed the music video which intersperses scenes from the film with Loggins singing from a bed, alluding to the subtext of the song which I initially missed. Loggins does look quite hot here.
Via
, here’s a lovely reimagining of the song done during COVID in Kenny Loggins’ living room with Jessy Lynn Martens and other friends.Enjoy your song of the day!
Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer kept it out of #1 but both songs endure.
I say again: I appreciate you kicking off the conversation by taking a strong position. I think it made for a better conversation (and you had good reasons).
After listening to a bunch of versions of "Danger Zone" I think I'm going to have it stuck in my head for weeks; but that's not too bad.
So many soundtrack songs of the 80s got passed around to many artists. These “coulda been” versions are always interesting to contemplate. Vocally, I feel like Corey Hart made sense here and it’s a shame we never heard that.