While it might be a stretch to say that Roxette owned the late '80s, it's not by much. In my 10-year-old mind, the Swedish tour-de-force could do no wrong. I nearly wore out my dad's cassingle (cassette single, for the uninitiated) of this song. Luckily, I had the foresight to record it onto a mix tape or three. I like this exchange from the liner notes of Don't Bore Us, Get to the Chorus! (and it saves my having to dig for a back story):
Per Gessle (PG) : The Big Bad Ballad. This is us trying to recreate that overblown American FM-rock sound to the point where it almost becomes absurd. We really wanted to see how far we could take it.
Mats M.P. Persson (MF): It sounds a bit dusty today, but it was our second #1 in the US...
PG: which of course we couldn't ever dream about since it was more or less made for Sweden. When it hit big in the States we suddenly found ourselves lumped together with bands like Heart and Starship, which wasn't the intention behind Roxette at all. But we got out of that one... I hope.
MF: The video was great. Shot with an American crew at the Borgholm Castle. The director thought we had built the ruin just for the video.
PG: It took some time to convince them that the place actually was for real.
MF: Today we perform it in a stripped down version, with acoustic guitars. Still love the melody.
Enjoy!
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