As Mick Jagger sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well, you just might find you get what you need.” This story isn’t about Jagger, it’s about another singer — Eddie Money — but the message still applies.
When Money first heard the demo for what would become his 1986 comeback hit, “Take Me Home Tonight,” he didn’t really care for it. In fact, he didn’t like it even after the song shot to #1 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks (and #4 on the Billboard Hot 100).
”I still hate it, man,” Money told the Chicago Tribune that year. “l’ll tell ya, if it didn’t have Ronnie [Spector] on the tune, I never would have done it. The verses make sense, but I hate that whole bit, ‘I feel the hunger.'”
Of course, iconic vocalist Spector — formerly of The Ronettes — played a huge role in the success of “Take Me Home Tonight,” which features Spector re-creating a line from the 1963 classic “Be My Baby.”
“After I thought about it for a while, I just called up Ronnie in New York and said, ‘I need some help. I’m not going to sing ‘Be my little baby,'” Money explained.
Unfortunately, Spector wasn’t interested…at first.
“I could hear clinking and clanking in the background,” Money told The Hippo in 2015, per the National Review. “I said, ‘Ronnie, what are you doing?’ She said, ‘I’m doing the dishes, and I gotta change the kids’ bedding. I’m not really in the business anymore, Eddie.’”
Finally, Money was able to convince Spector to come down to the studio.
“When she got there, she didn’t even remember it; she had a mental block against [Phil] Spector,” he said. “But then she came out and did the song. She was even better on a cheap bottle of wine and some crappy grass, I gotta tell you.”
‘Take Me Home Tonight’ marked a huge comeback for both Eddie Money and Ronnie Spector
Both Money and Spector’s careers were at perhaps their lowest points before “Take Me Home Tonight” was released, but everything changed after that.
Money was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for “Take Me Home Tonight,” and two other singles from the album Can’t Hold Back performed well: “I Wanna Go Back” and “Endless Nights,” which reached #14 and #21, respectively.
Spector, meanwhile, made a return to music, releasing her second solo album, Unfinished Business, in 1987. As American Songwriter reported, Spector also began hosting her annual Christmas Party at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in NYC and released her 1990 memoir Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness.
Related: 1963 Classic Hit Ranked #1 ‘Greatest Girl-Group Song of All Time’ Was the ‘Beginning of Pop Music’
