June 1986, Los Angeles: Columbia Pictures / CBS release the single “Take My Breath Away” performed by American band Berlin. The track is written by Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock specifically for Tony Scott's Top Gun. Berlin's vocalist is Terri Nunn (born 1961, Los Angeles). By September the single is at #1 Billboard Hot 100 (one week), #1 UK (four weeks), #1 in France, Germany, Australia. The Top Gun soundtrack sells 9 million copies in the US, becoming the third best-selling soundtrack of the 80s (after Grease and Saturday Night Fever). In March 1987 Moroder picks up his third Academy Award - Best Original Song. But within a year of that triumph, Berlin fall apart.
How Tony Scott asked Moroder for a soundtrack
Development on Top Gun began in 1985. Producers - Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer; director - Tony Scott (Ridley's brother). They understood that a film about fighter pilots needed music schoolkids would want to hear. For the score they hired Harold Faltermeyer, author of the instrumental theme “Axel F” (1984). But for the central love theme Scott wanted a vocal ballad, not an instrumental.
Scott called Giorgio Moroder, whom he hadn't worked with before. Moroder already had two Oscars (Midnight Express, Flashdance) and was considered the best in Hollywood at wedding a pop melody to a narrative cue. He agreed to a US$350,000 fee on condition they also bring in Tom Whitlock - a young Los Angeles lyricist Moroder wanted to break.
A nice detail: in 1985 Tom Whitlock was working as a mechanic at Moroder's own garage in Beverly Hills. Moroder, impressed by lyrics Whitlock kept showing him between oil changes, offered him the Top Gun commission. It was Whitlock's first professional contract.
How it got written
Moroder wrote the melody in one evening in October 1985, sitting at a Yamaha DX7. He hummed it into a cassette and handed it to Whitlock with a brief: “I need a lyric about total acceptance - the way one person changes another.” Whitlock turned in a first draft in three days; it survives in the archive, opening line “Watching, I keep looking at you / This is the place I found myself”. Moroder asked him to rewrite - “too philosophical, I need a punch to the face”. The second draft became the final.
The demo, with Moroder singing it himself for reference, ran 1:43 and was recorded at Moroder's home studio in Beverly Hills on a Sony PCM-F1 digital tape deck. Moroder handed that tape to Simpson and Bruckheimer on 12 December 1985. Both approved at first listen.
Why Berlin, not Donna Summer
Moroder initially wanted Donna Summer to sing “Take My Breath Away” - they had a ten-year working history. Summer declined: in 1985 she had moved to Asheville, Tennessee and stepped back from her career. Second choice: Linda Ronstadt. Another no: Ronstadt was in rehearsal for The Pirates of Penzance.
In January 1986 Moroder approached Berlin - a Los Angeles new wave band fronted by Terri Nunn. Berlin had existed since 1978, had two mid-selling albums (Pleasure Victim 1982, Love Life 1984), and a defining synthetic aesthetic. Terri Nunn had auditioned for Princess Leia in Star Wars in 1976 (Carrie Fisher got it), then Sarah Connor in The Terminator (Linda Hamilton got it). For Moroder she was “a known second-tier name who'd agree to a workable fee”.
Berlin received US$40,000 to perform (against the US$300,000 Donna Summer had declined). The recording happened at Oasis Recording in Los Angeles over two days in February 1986.
The recording
The instrumental bed had been assembled by Moroder in his own studio before Berlin arrived. Gear:
- Yamaha DX7 - electric piano (E.PIANO 1), verse foundation
- Roland Jupiter-8 - string pad, long release
- Sequential Prophet-5 - bass line
- LinnDrum LM-2 - drums, BPM 108
- Fairlight CMI Series II - string “pillows” in the chorus
- Sony PCM-1630 - digital tape deck (Moroder's first fully-digital production)
Terri Nunn tracked vocals over two days - 12 takes of the lead, 8 on backing vocals. She sang seated (not standing, as usual) because, she said, “standing up my voice got too aggressive, and Moroder wanted a relaxed tone”. The slow 108 BPM tempo let her breathe between lines.
“I sang that song twelve times in one day. Moroder wanted it quieter and quieter. By the twelfth take I was almost whispering. He said: "That's it. That sounds like breathing." And we stopped”, - Terri Nunn in People, 1986.
The video, the Oscar, and 9 million soundtrack copies
The video was directed by Frank Mariano in April 1986 - two weeks before the film's premiere. Budget: US$180,000. The concept: Terri Nunn walking an airfield runway, film clips of Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis intercut between Berlin sequences. A standard “film tie-in” video of the era.
Top Gun opened on 16 May 1986. US box office: US$179M; worldwide US$356M (#1 film of 1986). The soundtrack came out on 13 May and sold 9 million copies in the US within a year. By that point “Take My Breath Away” was in rotation on every MTV channel in the world.
The Academy Award for Best Original Song was handed out on 30 March 1987. Moroder and Whitlock collected their statuettes. For Moroder it was a third Oscar in eight years. For Whitlock it was the first and only: his later career in Hollywood never took off.
Numbers
- US: #1 Billboard Hot 100 (September 1986, one week); platinum
- UK: #1, four weeks; gold
- France, Germany, Australia: #1
- Austria, Switzerland, Sweden: #1
- Top Gun soundtrack: 9× platinum in the US, 25 million copies worldwide
- Grammy 1987: Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
- Academy Award 1987: Best Original Song
Spotify 2024 - over 790 million streams. The track reappears in Top Gun: Maverick (2022), playing in a climactic scene with the same Tom Cruise 36 years on.
Why Berlin broke up in 1987
The “Take My Breath Away” hit exposed Berlin's internal conflicts. Terri Nunn wanted to keep going in the pop direction; the rest (especially bassist and musical leader John Crawford) wanted to return to new wave. The next album Count Three & Pray (1986) couldn't repeat the success. In November 1987 Nunn left the band; Berlin disbanded in early 1988.
In 1998 Nunn reformed the band with a new lineup; they still tour nostalgia festivals in 2024. Tom Whitlock went on as a freelance lyricist but never wrote another major hit. Giorgio Moroder keeps working - in 2015 he released the album Déjà Vu with Sia and Britney Spears.
Related: Giorgio Moroder and the Munich Sound, “Axel F” Faltermeyer, “Voyage Voyage” Desireless. “Take My Breath Away” is late-period Moroder: no more Munich Sound, fully digital production, fully Hollywood. But the formula holds: slow tempo, female voice, synth bass, minimal arrangement. This is Moroder in his last shape - and perhaps his most refined.