“Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins, Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Kenny Loggins is known as the "King of the Movie Soundtrack." Starting with the 1976 version of A Star Is Born, Loggins most recognizable songs are 1985's "Footloose," the titular track to the film in which Kevin Bacon rebelled against a backwards town that banned all dancing, and 1986's "Danger Zone," one of two songs he contributed to the Tom Cruise summer blockbuster Top Gun, and one of two major hits from the film, the other being Berlin's "Take My Breath Away." Like many songs on the Top Gun soundtrack, “Danger Zone” ended up being performed by an artist the song wasn’t intended for.

SHOVIN' INTO OVERDRIVE. "Danger Zone" is a recurring song throughout Top Gun and even appears in the film's 2022 sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, performed by alleged Yacht rocker Kenny Loggins. Originally Toto was asked to perform "Danger Zone," but there was a conflict between the band's lawyers and the studio. Next, Bryan Adams was asked, but the Canadian rocker declined, feeling that the film was pro-war and against his views.  REO Speedwagon and Corey Hart also declined because they weren't permitted to feature one of their own songs in the film. Originally Toto's "Only You" was supposed to be the film's love theme, but just as the Toto recording of "Danger Zone" was legally blocked so too was their use of a slower song. After considering New Wave band The Motels who recorded a demo for the song "Take My Breath Away," ultimately Berlin's version was used in the film and the song won an Academy Award. "Danger Zone" feels like that quintessential '80s tune: simple masculine rhyming lyrics; comparing sex to something powerful, mechanical, and manly; a guitar solo with a faint sax solo; and that V-VIm-V-IV chord progression that feel like a aviators and possibly a mullet. 

THE HOTTER THE INTENSITY. The viral Tweet below from this summer makes me wonder if we've completely lost our originality and that we're doomed to live in a loop of '80s and '90s trends.

Ok so let me get this straight. The #1 movie in the country is Top Gun, the #1 song is Kate Bush “Running up The Hill”, and America is in a proxy war with Russia? So we’re just like “fuck it, let’s give 1986 another go then?”

— Matt Clarke (@iMattClarke) June 1, 2022

I like to tell my students that Top Gun is older than me--the film came out the year before I was born, and somehow Tom Cruise still has it. But growing up in the early '00s I had a cultural disdain for the '80s, which I've talked about many times before. There was something about the hyper-masculinity of films like Top Gun --films that tried very hard to be the direct opposite of delicate femininity of say, the Radio City Rockettes --that had my friends calling it gay. There's certainly a lot of queer theory surrounding this film reading into the nuance of Maverick and Goose's friendship. But maybe the at the heart of this theory is a confused 13-year-old boy regaling his sexual fantasies after feeling something mysterious after watching the movie, much like me at a Pathfinder lock-in when the leader wanted to show his favorite movie. And the boys and I cracked jokes throughout the whole movie, but we ultimately watched it or fell asleep because we know that we couldn't watch anything else and it was on. I think most of the boys did fall asleep but I lay in my sleeping bag enjoying the shirtless volleyball and the other shirtless scenes. And for years I replayed that scene of Maverick washing his face in his tighty whities (spoiler alert) just after Goose is killed. I felt so conflicted about Top Gun, and I didn't know how to stand up for my... crush? Tom Cruise when my sister so vehemently hated him and his "cheesy smile." And I couldn't stand up for Top Gun because it was a guilty pleasure that really had no place in a young struggling closeted Christian teen's life. In a way, Top Gun was a "Danger Zone" for my semblance of heterosexuality. 

Read the lyrics on Genius.