“Take My Breath Away” by Berlin

Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" was made to order for Top Gun in 1986 and also landed on the American new wave band's album Count Three & Pray. Jerry Bruckheimer, one of the film's producers, had already gotten "Danger Zone" out of Giorgio Moroder for Kenny Loggins; pleased with that, he asked for something slower to play under a romantic scene. Moroder built a demo around a synthesizer bass sound so distinctive it carried over to the finished recording, then handed it to Tom Whitlock, a mechanic who had first met him fixing the brakes on his Ferrari. The two share the writing credit.

Moroder produced it, and Berlin gave him pure midnight gloss, synth-pop that drifts instead of punching. It won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.