About

"In The Air Tonight" is a 1980 pop-song by English drummer, singer-songwriter and recording artist Phil Collins. Known for its reverb-tinged drum song and haunting vocals, the song has been a seminal pop-culture artifact since the early-1980s, appearing in movies, television and commercials.

Origin

Phil Collins released the music video for the song in 1981 as the debut single for his debut solo album Face Value (shown below). The song and album were officially released on February 6th, 1981.^[1]

Spread

An immediate hit, the song reached #19 on the Billboard's Hot 100 in the United States.^[2] In 1984, the television series Miami Vice used the song in a near-four-minute sequence during the show's first episode (shown below).

Urban Legend

On September 12th, 2000, the fact-checking website Snopes ^[3] declared an urban legend, which purported Collins wrote the song after "witnessing an incident in which a man refused to come to the aid of a drowning swimmer," false.

They explain:

The story has to do with Phil Collins supposedly watching his close friend drown from a nearby cliff, while he stood helpless, too far away to rescue. In addition, supposedly there was a man who could have rescued the friend but just stood idly by. Then, Phil writes a song about the experience and gives the man a front-row ticket to the show where he premieres the song. While Phil sings the song to him, the spotlight is on the man in the front row.

On the rumor, Collins told the BBC:^[4]

I don't know what this song is about. When I was writing this I was going through a divorce. And the only thing I can say about it is that it's obviously in anger. It's the angry side, or the bitter side of a separation. So what makes it even more comical is when I hear these stories which started many years ago, particularly in America, of someone come up to me and say, 'Did you really see someone drowning?' I said, 'No, wrong'. And then every time I go back to America the story gets Chinese whispers, it gets more and more elaborate. It's so frustrating, 'cos this is one song out of all the songs probably that I've ever written that I really don't know what it's about, you know.

Cadbury Gorilla

On August 31st, 2007, the British advertising company Fallon London released the advertising campaign "Gorilla" for Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate. The video features 90 seconds of a gorilla performing "In Air Tonight."^[5] The ad aired during the finale of the reality television series Big Brother 8.

On September 21st, 2007, YouTuber DanJW83 posted an extended version of the advertisement on YouTube. The post received more than 5.1 million views in less than 13 years (shown below).

Drum Remixes

"In the Air Tonight" inspired a series of video remixes in which people feature people, animals or objects performing the song's famous drum fill (examples below).

TwinsthenewTrend Reaction Video

On July 27th, 2020, YouTubers TwinsthenewTrend published the video "FIRST TIME HEARING Phil Collins – In the Air Tonight REACTION." Within three weeks, the video amassed more than 5.2 million views (shown below). The video went viral, earning more than 22,000 points (96% upvoted) on the /r/MadeMeSmile^[7] subreddit. Several media outlets also covered the video, including CNN,^[6] the New Yorker^[8], HuffPost^[9] and more.

On August 6th, Twitter user @tprstly uploaded a clip of the video to Twitter. The tweet received more than 18 million views, 264,000 likes and 64,000 retweets in less than two weeks (shown below).

As a result of the video's viral success, "In the Air Tonight" returned to the top music charts, reaching #2 on iTunes charts.^[6]

Two teenagers get schooled by Phil Collins.https://t.co/SV4eczvuq9 pic.twitter.com/6IoaatJYIq

— 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘰 (@tprstly) August 6, 2020

Search Interest

External References