INXS – Need You Tonight

The Riff That Made A Taxi Driver Wait An Hour

Released in September 1987 as the first single from Kick, “Need You Tonight” became INXS’s only number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching the top spot on January 16, 1988 and staying there for one week. The song spent 25 weeks on the chart and made INXS only the third Australian act to top the American charts, the first in five years since Men at Work. But here’s the story nobody talks about: Andrew Farriss was leaving for the airport when that iconic riff suddenly appeared in his head. He asked the taxi driver to wait a couple of minutes while he grabbed something from his motel room. An hour later, Farriss came back down with a cassette tape and one very annoyed cab driver, having just recorded what would become the most important three minutes of INXS’s career.

The chart journey was anything but straightforward. When the single first hit UK charts in October 1987, it stalled at number 58 and dropped off completely after three weeks. Atlantic Records in America initially hated the entire Kick album so much they offered manager Chris Murphy one million dollars to scrap it and start over. But Murphy had a secret weapon: he arranged a meeting with Atlantic’s college radio division and played them “Need You Tonight”. Campus radio embraced it immediately, leading to a grassroots strategy where INXS toured college bars and university auditoriums across places like Kalamazoo, Michigan and Poughkeepsie, New York. The song climbed slowly but steadily. Meanwhile, in the UK, it took a Julian Mendelsohn remix released in November 1988 to finally break through, hitting number two over a year after its initial release. The Kick album eventually went six times platinum in America, selling over 14 million copies worldwide.

The Hong Kong sabbatical where Farriss conceived the riff was actually part of the band’s strategy to finish writing for Kick. Producer Chris Thomas kept pushing them, insisting they didn’t have enough hit material yet despite the band’s management already booking European tour dates. So Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss flew to Hong Kong to continue writing. After that frantic taxi delay, Farriss brought his cassette demo back to Sydney, played it for Hutchence, and the frontman wrote the lyrics on the spot in about an hour. The sexual tension in the vocals, that breathy, understated delivery, came naturally to Hutchence, who was described as sex on toast, a new wave Jim Morrison. The lyrics captured nervous anticipation perfectly, the awkwardness and electricity of mutual attraction. Farriss had programmed the rhythm on a Roland 707 drum machine, then added the guitar riff and a bass line played on keyboard bass, creating a demo so complete they barely changed it for the album version.

Recording took place primarily at Rhinoceros Studios in Sydney starting in January 1987, with additional sessions at Studio de la Grande Armée in Paris, and mixing completed at Air Studios in London. Producer Chris Thomas returned after helming Listen Like Thieves, bringing engineer David Nicholas who co-owned Rhinoceros Studios. Bob Clearmountain handled the mixing, giving the track that crystalline clarity. The song became far more electronic than most INXS material before or after, layering sequencers with regular drum tracks and multiple guitar parts. Drummer Jon Farriss played live drums over Andrew’s programmed beats, while Tim Farriss added guitar, Kirk Pengilly contributed saxophone and rhythm guitar, and Garry Gary Beers played bass. Engineer David Nicholas made one crucial creative decision: when he accidentally heard both “Need You Tonight” and the track that would become “Mediate” playing simultaneously, they synced up so perfectly he thought something was wrong with the equipment. He labored to combine them, which is why “Mediate” follows “Need You Tonight” seamlessly on the album.

The Kick album represented a pivotal shift for INXS. For the first time, only Hutchence and Andrew Farriss handled songwriting duties, with the rest of the band content to serve the songs rather than co-write. They rehearsed the material at the Sydney Opera House before recording, a rock star indulgence that ensured the songs could fill arenas. The album incorporated funk, Motown rhythms, and emerging hip-hop elements like loops and samples, moving far from the jittery new wave of their early years. Atlantic Records’ skepticism stemmed from the hair metal dominance of 1987, with Spandex-wearing bands and screaming guitar solos defining rock radio formats. INXS didn’t fit those segregated genre boxes. Following “Need You Tonight”, the album spawned four more consecutive top five singles including “Devil Inside”, “New Sensation”, “Never Tear Us Apart”, and “Mystify”, making Kick one of the most successful album campaigns of the late 80s.

The legacy of “Need You Tonight” extends far beyond its chart success. Kylie Minogue, once romantically involved with Hutchence, performed it on her Kiss Me Once Tour as a tribute to him. In March 2010, UK rapper Professor Green released “I Need You Tonight”, based entirely on the song. Dua Lipa interpolated the guitar riff for her 2020 single “Break My Heart”, introducing it to a new generation. The track appeared in films like Coyote Ugly and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, plus TV shows including 30 Rock, Miami Vice, Coronation Street, and notably Black Mirror’s beloved episode San Junipero. A 2015 Apple Watch commercial featured the song when someone orders their device to play some 80s music. In February 2014, after Channel 7 screened the INXS miniseries Never Tear Us Apart, the song charted again in Australia via download sales, peaking at number 28.

Looking back, “Need You Tonight” stands as the song that transformed INXS from Australian pub rockers into global superstars, capturing Michael Hutchence at his charismatic peak before tragedy would later claim him. The song works because it doesn’t require vocal gymnastics or complicated arrangements. It’s built on nervousness, breathiness, rhythm, and that hypnotic guitar riff that Andrew Farriss heard in his head while a taxi driver impatiently waited outside. As one critic noted, it remains the perfect karaoke song for anyone without a rocket launcher voice, because all you need is a sense of rhythm and the ability to whisper and gasp your way through it while looking sexy. That accessibility, combined with Hutchence’s impossible handsomeness and the band’s willingness to incorporate funk and dance elements into rock music, created something that straddled worlds. It sat comfortably between Def Leppard’s bombast and George Michael’s electro-pop, sharing DNA with Prince and Michael Jackson while remaining distinctly INXS. Thirty-seven years later, that annoyed taxi driver’s hour-long wait still echoes through speakers worldwide.