Tonight She Comes

The Cars song

"Tonight She Comes" is a 1985 song by The Cars, from their Greatest Hits album. It was released as a single in October 1985, reaching number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also reached number 1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, where it stayed for three weeks. It was The Cars' fourth and (as of 2010) last Top 40 hit.

"Tonight She Comes"
Single by The Cars
from the album Greatest Hits
B-side"Just What I Needed"
ReleasedOctober 14, 1985
GenreNew wave
Length3:52
LabelElektra
Songwriter(s)Ric Ocasek
Producer(s)
The Cars singles chronology
"Heartbeat City"
(1985)
"Tonight She Comes"
(1985)
"I'm Not the One"
(1986)
Music video
"Tonight She Comes" on YouTube

Composition

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It is a simple, diatonic pop rock song in F major, featuring a hard rock-style guitar solo by Cars guitarist Elliot Easton.

The solo was transcribed by Steve Vai in the February 1986 issue of Guitar Player magazine, as the centrepiece of an interview with Easton. In the interview, Easton described the custom-built Kramer guitar used for the solo, saying that the reason the solo was "so dense" was due to the four weeks he spent recording the single, giving Easton long enough to compose it.[1]

The song's title is another Ric Ocasek double entendre, though, as Elliot Easton put it, "it doesn't actually say that she reaches orgasm. It could mean that tonight she's coming over to make popcorn."[1]

Release and reception

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"Tonight She Comes" was The Cars' fourth Top 10 hit.[2] It was the first of two songs to be released as a single from their Greatest Hits album; a remixed version of "I'm Not the One", previously recorded in 1981 for the Shake It Up album, was the second.[2]

AllMusic critic Greg Prato, in his review for Greatest Hits described the track as "playful", while Tim Sendra, also from AllMusic, said in his review of The Essentials that the song (among the others on that album), was "definitely essential".[3][4] Critic Donald Guarisco said that the song "is one of their most straightforward pop outings and shows just how far they had moved from the acidic mindset of 'Just What I Needed' and "Let's Go'".[5] He went on to say that the track was "a delightful, pristine pop confection".[5]

References

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  1. 1.0 1.1 Milano, Brett. Just What I Needed: The Cars Anthology. Rhino.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits (8th Edition). Billboard Books. p. 109. ISBN 0-8230-7499-4.
  3. Prato, Greg. "Greatest Hits". allmusic.com.
  4. Sendra, Tim. "The Essentials - The Cars | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  5. 5.0 5.1 Guarisco, Donald. "Tonight She Comes". allmusic.com.