"Take Me Home Tonight" is a song by American rock singer Eddie Money. It was released in August 1986 as the lead single from his album Can't Hold Back. The song's chorus interpolates the Ronettes' 1963 hit "Be My Baby", with original vocalist Ronnie Spector providing uncredited vocals and reprising her role.
The song reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 15, 1986, and number one on the Album Rock Tracks chart; outside the U.S., it was a top 15 hit in Canada. It received a Grammy nomination for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, and was Money's biggest hit on the U.S. charts.
Alongside its album, "Take Me Home Tonight" helped revive Money's career after a period of declining sales. It also allowed Spector to resume her touring/recording career after several years of retirement.
By the mid-1980s, Eddie Money had reached a low-point in his recording career after several years of drug abuse. Columbia Records still wanted to keep Money on its roster, but restricted his creative control regarding his output. Record producer Richie Zito brought Money the song "Take Me Home Tonight", and Money would recall: "I didn't care for the demo [but] it did have a good catch line. When I heard [a snippet of] 'Be My Baby' in it I said: 'Why can't we get Ronnie Spector to sing it?' [and was told] 'That's impossible.'" Money invited his friend Martha Davis, lead vocalist of the Motels, to sing the lines from "Be My Baby" on "Take Me Home Tonight": Davis encouraged him to try to recruit Spector herself and Money was eventually able to speak on the phone to Spector at her home in northern California: Money - "I could hear clinking and clanking in the background...She said: 'I'm doing the dishes, and I gotta change the kids' bedding. I’m not really in the business anymore, Eddie. Phil Spector and all that, it was a nightmare'...I said 'Ronnie, I got this song that’s truly amazing and it’s a tribute to you. It would be so great if you…did it with me.'" The success of "Take Me Home Tonight" encouraged Spector to resume her singing career, and she released her second solo album, Unfinished Business, in 1987. In 1987 Money would say of "Take Me Home Tonight": "I didn't like the song, but…it helped Ronnie out and it helped me get some of my other material on the album across, so now I'm happy I did it."
Edward Joseph Mahoney (March 21, 1949 – September 13, 2019), known professionally as Eddie Money, was an American singer and songwriter who, in the 1970s and 1980s, had eleven Top 40 songs, including "Baby Hold On", "Two Tickets to Paradise", "Think I'm in Love", "Shakin'", "Take Me Home Tonight", "I Wanna Go Back", "Walk on Water", and "The Love in Your Eyes". Critic Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times called him a working-class rocker and Kristin Hall of the Associated Press stated he had a husky voice. In 1987, he was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for "Take Me Home Tonight".
