1
00:00:00,520 --> 00:00:04,320
Speaker 1: Let Me Tell You a Story Now on Time Clearsy releases.

2
00:00:04,559 --> 00:00:10,440
Speaker 2: The story behind the song danger Zone Needs Very Little Introduction.

3
00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:14,880
Speaker 2: Recorded by American singer songwriter Kenny Loggins in nineteen eighty six,

4
00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:18,400
Speaker 2: with music composed by Georgie Moroder and lyrics written by

5
00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:22,520
Speaker 2: Tom Whitlock, it was, of course a huge hit from

6
00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:25,640
Speaker 2: the soundtrack to the nineteen eighty six film Top Gun.

7
00:00:25,760 --> 00:00:28,240
Speaker 2: It was the best selling soundtrack of nineteen eighty six

8
00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:30,240
Speaker 2: and one of the best selling of all time. As

9
00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:33,040
Speaker 2: a matter of fact, according to AllMusic dot Com, the

10
00:00:33,080 --> 00:00:37,599
Speaker 2: album remains a quintessential artifact of the mid eighties. It's

11
00:00:37,640 --> 00:00:41,239
Speaker 2: I love the way they put that, quintessential artifact of

12
00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:44,960
Speaker 2: the mid eighties. The song is also featured in the

13
00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:49,280
Speaker 2: twenty two sequel A Top Gun Maverick and its soundtrack,

14
00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:51,880
Speaker 2: using the same original recording.

15
00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:54,760
Speaker 1: We never we never did a skyworks without it.

16
00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:58,120
Speaker 3: I know, incredible, wasn't it. Yeah, they're in the danger zone.

17
00:00:58,160 --> 00:00:59,080
Speaker 3: Everyone would look up.

18
00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:02,720
Speaker 1: So let's get to the story behind the song solutly.

19
00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:04,040
Speaker 3: And there was a song list that was knocked back

20
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:07,000
Speaker 3: by several people. It was originally offered to Jefferson, Starship

21
00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:12,440
Speaker 3: and Oh really Busy in the ers Eye. Canadian Corey

22
00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:16,160
Speaker 3: Hart knocked it back as well. He wrote his feature

23
00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:19,080
Speaker 3: was Cybridy didn't need danger Side. Even Kevin Cronin from

24
00:01:19,080 --> 00:01:21,560
Speaker 3: Ario Speedwagon said it's a bit high for my range,

25
00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:23,560
Speaker 3: and I went, they had a pretty hard voice himself.

26
00:01:24,200 --> 00:01:26,520
Speaker 1: So Kenny, he's Kenny Logan saying they didn't like it.

27
00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:30,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So Kenny Logan's us. This is him

28
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:32,160
Speaker 3: talking about getting the gig after he'd had that recent

29
00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:34,480
Speaker 3: success and a number one hit. Of course, with footloots

30
00:01:34,520 --> 00:01:36,399
Speaker 3: from another movie soundtrack, they did.

31
00:01:36,600 --> 00:01:40,520
Speaker 4: What's called a cattle Call that was a Bruckheimer Simpson movie,

32
00:01:40,959 --> 00:01:43,840
Speaker 4: and they had every pop act in the business was

33
00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:47,360
Speaker 4: coming to see a screening of Tom Cruise's new movie.

34
00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:52,800
Speaker 4: This was like his second movie, Risky Business was the breakthrough, right,

35
00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:56,120
Speaker 4: and so everybody knew that Cruise was going to take off.

36
00:01:56,240 --> 00:02:00,600
Speaker 4: So they had a powerful opportunity to get the sacks.

37
00:02:00,640 --> 00:02:05,280
Speaker 4: So I went with my writing partner and we saw

38
00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:08,440
Speaker 4: the movie and I said, let's not compete with those

39
00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:11,480
Speaker 4: opening credits. Let's write for the volleyball scene. Nobody's going

40
00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:13,600
Speaker 4: to write for that, so we'll get a song in

41
00:02:13,639 --> 00:02:15,600
Speaker 4: the movie. So we did we wrote a song called

42
00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:19,000
Speaker 4: Playing with the Boys, and I was in the studio

43
00:02:19,120 --> 00:02:21,120
Speaker 4: recording Playing with the Boys when I got a call

44
00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:25,040
Speaker 4: from Georgio Moroder, who had written the bulk of danger

45
00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:28,640
Speaker 4: Zone and quite a few of the songs in Top Gun,

46
00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:33,280
Speaker 4: and he said, I've got to put a voice on

47
00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:36,679
Speaker 4: this song. And the band I had, the lawyers killed

48
00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:39,040
Speaker 4: the deal, so I have no singer for this song.

49
00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:42,160
Speaker 4: So he has danger Zone now, but he needs a singer.

50
00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:45,000
Speaker 4: He needs a singer, and it wasn't supposed to be me.

51
00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:47,959
Speaker 4: It was supposed to be Jefferson Starship, but they got

52
00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:53,040
Speaker 4: pulled out of the project, so he knew I was

53
00:02:53,080 --> 00:02:55,840
Speaker 4: in the studio down the street. So this is how

54
00:02:55,880 --> 00:02:58,280
Speaker 4: it works, right you think this is like somebody thought

55
00:02:58,280 --> 00:03:03,760
Speaker 4: about this. I'm in the studio and he says, do

56
00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:05,280
Speaker 4: you want to sing my signe? Well?

57
00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:06,120
Speaker 1: Is it up tempo?

58
00:03:06,440 --> 00:03:09,640
Speaker 4: Because I've been writing nothing but ballads and I need

59
00:03:09,639 --> 00:03:12,280
Speaker 4: something up tempo. He says, yeah, Rocks, Okay, I'll be

60
00:03:12,360 --> 00:03:12,760
Speaker 4: right there.

61
00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:15,520
Speaker 1: You have the business works. Isn't it pretty ftuitious?

62
00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:18,880
Speaker 2: Because I imagine being the person behind a song that

63
00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:23,079
Speaker 2: now is pretty much associated with any time you see

64
00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:25,519
Speaker 2: a plane going far true. You know sometimes the RAF

65
00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:27,880
Speaker 2: guys are doing stuff and they go over your house,

66
00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:29,840
Speaker 2: and as soon as they go over my house, I

67
00:03:29,919 --> 00:03:31,680
Speaker 2: hear dangers my head.

68
00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:35,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, comes to mind. Kenny was being honest there, and

69
00:03:35,680 --> 00:03:37,160
Speaker 3: a lot of his stuff had been you know, with

70
00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:39,120
Speaker 3: Loggins and the scene or had been feeling. Mellow foot

71
00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:41,360
Speaker 3: Looks was a little bit different, and probably his ladest

72
00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:43,040
Speaker 3: thing before that was a hit called I'm all Right.

73
00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:46,160
Speaker 3: But this is him talking Kenny Loggins again talking about

74
00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:48,840
Speaker 3: his inspiration behind the vocal style, and at first he

75
00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:50,560
Speaker 3: wasn't impressed with the song itself.

76
00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:53,040
Speaker 4: Well, when I initially heard the song, I did have

77
00:03:53,080 --> 00:03:56,640
Speaker 4: some reservations about it, and I sat with Tom, the

78
00:03:56,720 --> 00:04:00,800
Speaker 4: co writer with Giorgio, and I added had some chord

79
00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:05,320
Speaker 4: substitutions and changes in the bridge, because to me, it

80
00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:07,200
Speaker 4: was it was the same thing over and over and

81
00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:09,960
Speaker 4: over again, and so I wanted to just mix it up,

82
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:12,520
Speaker 4: make it a little more interesting. And so I messed

83
00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:15,240
Speaker 4: with it, and then I really liked it, and it

84
00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:18,000
Speaker 4: gave me an opportunity to use a voice that I

85
00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:21,760
Speaker 4: hadn't used. You know that my own material had been softer.

86
00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:25,800
Speaker 4: The most rocking thing I'd done was footloose. During the

87
00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:28,440
Speaker 4: period of when I got a call from Georgio and

88
00:04:28,440 --> 00:04:31,599
Speaker 4: then I went into a studio. I was deep into

89
00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:36,000
Speaker 4: the Tina Turner Private Dancer album, and so I sort

90
00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:39,800
Speaker 4: of imitated her in where I was putting my voice

91
00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:43,280
Speaker 4: and the enunciations of the things, you know, dangers a

92
00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:46,160
Speaker 4: that kind of thing was very much her R and

93
00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:48,360
Speaker 4: B interpretation of her version of rock and roll.

94
00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:50,880
Speaker 1: So I just took that and took it another place

95
00:04:52,920 --> 00:04:55,560
Speaker 1: further inspirational. But I don't think that's a gride story.

96
00:04:55,560 --> 00:04:57,160
Speaker 1: I love it fine. That one.

97
00:04:57,400 --> 00:04:59,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, well we're up. They were the best of the

98
00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:00,719
Speaker 3: business from the eighties.

99
00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:03,520
Speaker 2: I loved that that was today's story behind the song

100
00:05:03,880 --> 00:05:05,040
Speaker 2: can You Be My Wing One