"Total Eclipse of the Heart" is the lead single by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler from her fifth studio album, Faster Than the Speed of Night (1983) written and produced by Jim Steinman and recorded in 1982, released as a single by CBS/Columbia in 1983.
The duet with Rory Dodd became Tyler's biggest career hit, topping the UK Singles Chart, and becoming the fifth-best-selling single in 1983 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the single spent four weeks at the top of the charts, keeping another Steinman penned song "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" by Air Supply from reaching the top spot (a song Tyler would later cover in 1995), and it was Billboard number-six song of the year for 1983. The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Its accompanying music video was directed by Russell Mulcahy and filmed in Surrey, England.
The single has sold over 13 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling singles of all time, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies after its release, updated to platinum in 2001 when the certification threshold changed. In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's third favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
Following Tyler's death in July 2026, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" re-entered the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number 29.
Background and composition
After her contract with RCA Records ended in 1981, Tyler found a new manager in David Aspden. After seeing Meat Loaf perform "Bat Out of Hell" live on The Old Grey Whistle Test, she approached Meat Loaf's writer, Jim Steinman, and asked him to be her producer. Tyler aimed to create an album utilizing the Wall of Sound production techniques of Phil Spector, and she believed that Steinman was the only person who could still create the same sound as Spector, who had mostly retired from the music business. Tyler visited Steinman in his apartment in New York in April 1982 with her manager, where she was presented with two tracks: "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" and "Goin' Through the Motions". She stated that had she not liked the songs Steinman played for her, he would have rejected Tyler's invitation to collaborate. She returned to his studio apartment weeks later, where Steinman and Rory Dodd performed "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for her. Steinman also hand-picked the recording band for the song, which included Dodd as a featured vocalist (the "Turn around..." refrain).
The lyric "Turn around, bright eyes" had originally appeared in Steinman's 1969 college musical The Dream Engine. Steinman had originally written the song's verse melody for his score to the 1980 film A Small Circle of Friends. Steinman said in an interview with Playbill about the inclusion of the song in his 1997 musical Dance of the Vampires:with 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', I was trying to come up with a love song and I remembered I actually wrote that to be a vampire love song. Its original title was 'Vampires in Love' because I was working on a musical of Nosferatu, the other great vampire story. If anyone listens to the lyrics, they're really like vampire lines. It's all about the darkness, the power of darkness and love's place in the dark...He also told People that he thought Tyler sounded like John Fogerty and wrote the song "to be a showpiece for her voice." Tyler described the song as "a challenge [to sing]," stating that she "[doesn't] like songs that anybody can sing. I like songs that need a lot of energy." After Steinman presented her with the song, she told The Times, "I just had shivers right up my spine...I couldn't wait to actually get in and record it." Tyler told Record Mirror that she thought the song was about "someone who wants to love so badly she's lying there in complete darkness."
According to Meat Loaf, Steinman had written the song, along with "Making Love Out of Nothing at All", for Meat Loaf's album Midnight at the Lost and Found; however, Meat Loaf's record company refused to pay Steinman, and he wrote separate songs himself. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was given to Bonnie Tyler and "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" to Air Supply. Tyler has denied this claim. "Meat Loaf was apparently very annoyed that Jim gave that to me," Tyler stated. "But Jim said he didn't write it for Meat Loaf, that he only finished it after meeting me." Steinman said to People that he considered it "an aria to me, a wagnerian-like onslaught of sound and emotion. I wrote it to be a showpiece for her voice."
In an interview with journalist Mick Wall shortly after the release of Meat Loaf's 2006 album Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, Steinman stated: "I didn't write [Total Eclipse of the Heart] for anyone but Bonnie." Steinman believed that CBS were expecting him to write something similar to "It's a Heartache", but he had different ideas.
Release "Total Eclipse of the Heart" had to be shortened for radio play. Tyler did not believe that the song was radio-friendly at its full length; the song was reduced from seven minutes and two seconds to four minutes and thirty seconds. For the music video, a five minute and thirty four second edit was used.
The power ballad became Tyler's highest-charting song in several countries, peaking at No. 1 in the United States, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. At its peak, it sold 60,000 copies per day and sold over 13 million copies in total. It won the Variety Club award in the UK for best recording artist of 1983. The song also made number 82 of VH1's top 100 love songs.
Music video
The music video for "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was directed by Australian director Russell Mulcahy and was filmed at the Holloway Sanatorium, a large Victorian Gothic hospital near Virginia Water, Surrey, England. The surrealist video features Tyler clad in white, dreaming or fantasizing about students in a boys' boarding school. Young men are seen dancing and participating in various school activities and singing in a choir.
The video received two nominations at the Billboard Video Music Awards in 1983 for Best Performance by a Female and Most Effective Use of Symbolism.
An urban legend is that the boy who appears throughout the video and who shakes Tyler's hand at the end is former Italian footballer Gianfranco Zola. In a 2012 interview, Zola confirmed that he did not appear in the video.
In September 2023, the video exceeded one billion views on YouTube.
Live performances Since the song's release, Tyler has performed "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in all of her concerts. "I sing it much better now than I used to," she told The Huffington Post. "I think my voice is probably not as husky as it was, I think it's mellowed a bit." The song was performed at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards, held at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, on 28 February 1984.
Bonnie Tyler sang "Total Eclipse of the Heart" live on board a Royal Caribbean cruise ship during the solar eclipse of 21 August 2017, backed by DNCE.
Live recordings of Tyler performing the song have been released on her albums Bonnie Tyler Live (2006) and Live in Germany 1993 (2011). Video performances have also been released on Tyler's DVDs, Bonnie on Tour (2006) and the DVD edition of Live in Germany 1993.
Critical reception Mike DeGagne from AllMusic retrospectively described "Total Eclipse of the Heart" as "one of the finest ballads ever to hit radio." He noted the "lush instrumentation" and said that Tyler's voice "produced the perfect type of 'desperate lovelorn' effect to suit the romantic lyrics." He described Roy Bittan's piano playing as "dreamy" and described Tyler's voice as "wonderfully gritty." Donald A. Guarisco, also from AllMusic, retrospectively reviewed Faster Than the Speed of Night and noted the song as an "epic ballad", describing the whole album as "rock at its most melodramatic." Jim Beviglia from American Songwriter said that Tyler's raspy vocals helped to legitimize the "melodrama inherent in the lyrics," and described the song as a "garment-rending, chest-beating [and] emotionally exhausting ballad" that suits the throes of a turbulent relationship.
Impact In a 2013 UK survey, the song came first in a list of most popular songs to sing in the shower, above songs by Justin Bieber, Robbie Williams, One Direction and Elton John. In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's third-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
Due to the song's lyrics comparing an ended romance with an eclipse, it often receives attention during solar and lunar eclipses. During the solar eclipse of 20 March 2015, Tyler's version received a 214% increase of Spotify streams throughout the day. A similar impact was experienced during the solar eclipse of 21 August 2017, when Nielsen Music reported a 503% increase in record sales., and the song hitting number one on the iTunes chart around the same time. The song again reached No. 1 on the iTunes sales chart in the US during the solar eclipse of 8 April 2024. In the following week, Tyler re-entered the Billboard Artist 100 chart at No. 79, and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" entered the LyricFind Global chart at No. 25, the Canadian Digital Song Sales chart at No. 9, and the US Digital Song Sales Chart at No. 5. This phenomenon was noted again during the solar eclipse of August 12 2026, with Spotify noting a 14 per cent boost in streaming of the song worldwide, including a 94 per cent rise in the UK on 12 August.
As of July 2026, the song has sold 1.9 million copies in the United States, and has surpassed 1 billion streams on Spotify.
Formats and track listings UK 7-inch single "Total Eclipse of the Heart" – 4:29 "Take Me Back" – 5:05
US 7-inch single "Total Eclipse of the Heart" – 4:29 "Straight from the Heart" – 3:38
UK 12-inch single "Total Eclipse of the Heart" – 6:59 "Take Me Back" – 5:22
Credits and personnel Credits are adapted from AllMusic. Bonnie Tyler – lead vocals Rick Derringer – guitar Steve Buslowe – bass guitar Roy Bittan – piano Larry Fast – synthesizers Steve Margoshes – additional synthesizers Max Weinberg – drums Jimmy Maelen – percussion Rory Dodd – featured and backing vocals Eric Troyer, Holly Sherwood – backing vocals
Charts Weekly charts Chart (1983)PeakpositionAustralia (Kent Music Report) 1Canada (The Record) 2Denmark (BT/IFPI) 6 Europarade Top 40 (Music Week) 7 Europarade Euro Hit 40 6Finland (Suomen virallinen lista) 6France (IFOP) 3Italy (Musica e dischi) Set "Tipo" on "Singoli". Then, in the "Artista" field, search "Bonnie Tyler". 17Peru (UPI) 2South Africa (Springbok Radio) 1Spain (AFYVE) 9US Cash Box Top 100 1Venezuela (UPI) 4Zimbabwe (ZIMA)1
YearChart Peakposition20082011Belgium (Back Catalogue Singles Flanders) 172012201320142017Canadian Digital Song Sales 38US Digital Songs (Billboard) 13US Pop Digital Songs Sales (Billboard) 8US Hot Canadian Pop Digital Songs Sales (Billboard) 382019Hungary (Single Top 40) 292024Canadian Digital Song Sales 9US Digital Songs (Billboard) 5US TikTok Billboard Top 50 13US LyricFind Global (Billboard) 252026 Australia On Replay Singles (ARIA) 13 German Top 100 Single Charts (GfK) 18 Greece International (IFPI) 35 Ireland (Official Charts) 36 Netherlands Airplay (Dutch Charts) 47 Poland (Polish Streaming Top 100) 67 Portugal (AFP) 77 Switzerland Singles Top 100 (Schweizer Hitparade)21UK Singles Chart (OCC) 29 US Digital Songs (Billboard) 2
Year-end charts Chart (1983)PositionAustralia (Kent Music Report) 6France (IFOP) 15New Zealand (RIANZ) 5South Africa (Springbok Radio) 3UK Singles (OCC) 5US Billboard Hot 100 6US Cash Box Top 100 5
All-time charts Chart (1958–2018)PositionUS Billboard Hot 100 161
Certifications and sales
Other versions by Bonnie Tyler