“Tonight She Comes” by The Cars

"Tonight She Comes" was the fresh track the Cars slipped onto their 1985 Greatest Hits, and it very nearly went to Ric Ocasek's solo career instead. The band's singer and guitarist wrote it alone and had it in hand during his solo sessions, but it didn't make that record, so the Cars regrouped for a one-off single, co-producing with engineer Mike Shipley.

It's a clean, diatonic pop tune in F major, cool and glossy in classic new wave fashion, and Elliot Easton gets the spotlight with a guitar solo that Steve Vai wrote out note for note for Guitar Player's February 1986 issue, built around an interview with Easton. Out on Elektra in October 1985, it climbed to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and held the top spot on the Top Rock Tracks chart for three weeks.

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