Once Giorgio Moroder wrote the musical backing to what would become "Take My Breath Away", lyricist Tom Whitlock wrote the lyrics while driving home from the studio, and then spent a few hours at home polishing them. A demo of the song, sung by a background singer, impressed director Tony Scott and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, who decided to film more romantic scenes between Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis to feature the song. The song was first offered to The Motels, who much later released their original demo, which is fairly similar to Berlin's released version, on their compilation albumAnthologyland. Columbia Records suggested some of their signed artists, but eventually Moroder thought of the band Berlin, whose song "No More Words" he had produced. Whitlock made a few changes to the lyrics before Terri Nunn recorded the vocals. Moroder has said that of all the songs he has produced in his career, he is most proud of this song.
Releases and performances
"Take My Breath Away" was the second single from the Top Gun soundtrack album, following Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone", and was released in 1986 as a split single alongside the song "Radar Radio", performed by Moroder featuring Joe Pizzulo. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and also topped the charts in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland and Belgium. "Take My Breath Away" is available on both the original Top Gun soundtrack album and the expanded edition. The song was also featured on Berlin's fourth studio album, Count Three & Pray, and on several of the band's compilation albums: Best of Berlin 1979–1988, Master Series, Greatest Hits Remixed, Live: Sacred & Profane, and Metro Greatest Hits. "Take My Breath Away" was one of the only songs not written by Berlin's John Crawford that they had performed on any album up to that point. "Take My Breath Away" was re-released in the United Kingdom in October 1990 to coincide with the first television showing of Top Gun, as well as Peugeot's new television advertising campaign for the 405 model range. The re-release reached number three on the UK Singles Chart. In 2017, ShortLists Dave Fawbert listed the song as containing "one of the greatest key changes in music history".
Music video
The music video features scenes from the film Top Gun intermingled with Berlin's singer Terri Nunn performing the song in blue coveralls, walking between parts of planes in a windy aircraft boneyard at night. Bandmates John Crawford and Rob Brill are shown relaxing in the yard and then following Nunn. The video can be seen occasionally on VH1 Europe's Top 10 Movie Soundtracks program. It was later included on the 2004 Top Guncollector's edition DVD.
American singer Jessica Simpson covered "Take My Breath Away" and released it as the third single from the album In This Skin in 2004. Her version was produced by Billy Mann. Simpson chose to cover this song because she thought that it was the theme song of her relationship with her then-husband, Nick Lachey.
