Was “Danger Zone” Originally Going to be a Toto Song?
Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.
MUSIC URBAN LEGEND: “Danger Zone” was originally going to be a Toto song!
The popular hit “Danger Zone” had an interesting journey on its way to becoming a hit song for Kenny Loggins!
The songwriting team of Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock wrote the song (the same fellows who wrote “Take My Breath Away”) for the film Top Gun, and they initially offered the song to popular 1980s rocker Bryan Adams.
Adams (who hails from Canada) turned down the song, and went so far as to disallowe the use of another one of his songs for Top Gun, due to the content of Top Gun, which he felt was basically a big piece of propaganda for the United States military.
The popular pop group Toto were in negotiations at the time to have another song on the soundtrack of the film, so they were lined up to be the next to take a crack at “Danger Zone.” However, the agreement to use their “Only You” for the film fell through, and the failure of that song lead to Toto abruptly pulling out of performing this song.
So now the producers had a song ready to go, but no singer!
Luckily, singer Kenny Loggins was already in studio recording HIS entry for the album (“Playing With the Boys”), so he was able to move over and, well, the rest is history!
The legend is…
STATUS: True
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