Need You Tonight

Song Meaning and Background of Need You Tonight by INXS

"Need You Tonight" is a song by the Australian rock band INXS, released as the first single from their 1987 album, Kick.

It is the only INXS single to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also achieved their highest charting position in the United Kingdom, where the song reached number two on the UK Singles Chart.

A classic Eighties pop-rock ballad began as a blues number. “It was a Fats Domino … Rolling Stones-y, early-Sixties song,” said producer Chris Thomas, who replaced the demo’s piano part with strings.

That orchestra-scale riff and a wailing saxophone solo by Kirk Pengilly made the track perfect for the late Eighties and with the song’s music video, which was shot in Prague amid the fall of communism.

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. He went up to record the riff and came back down an hour later with a tape to a very annoyed driver.

The song is a much more electronic track than most of the band's material before or after.

Lyrics of Need You Tonight by INXS

All you got is this moment

Twenty-first century's yesterday

You can care all you want

Everybody does yeah that's okay

So slide over here

And give me a moment

Your moves are so raw

I've got to let you know

I've got to let you know

You're one of my kind

I need you tonight

'Cause I'm not sleeping

There's something about you girl

That makes me sweat

How do you feel

I'm lonely

What do you think

Can't think at all

Whatcha gonna do

Gonna live my life

So slide over here

And give me a moment

Your moves are so raw

I've got to let you know

I've got to let you know

You're one of my kind

I need you tonight

'Cause I'm not sleeping

There's something about you girl

That makes me sweat

So how do you feel

I'm lonely

What do you think

Can't think at all

Whatcha gonna do

Gonna live my life

So how do you feel

I'm lonely

What do you think

Can't think at all

Whatcha gonna do

Gonna live my life

So slide over here

And give me a moment

Your moves are so raw

I've got to let you know

I've got to let you know

So slide over here

And give me a moment

I've got to let you know

I've got to let you know

You're one of my kind