Golden Earring – Radar Love
Description
“Radar Love” is a song by the Dutch rock band Golden Earring. The single version of “Radar Love” reached #9 on the Record World chart, #10 on Cash Box, and #13 on Billboard in the United States. It hit the Top 10 in many countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, and Spain.
Lyrics
The song is written from the point of view of a man who has some sort of psychic connection with his lover — “radar love”. He senses that she urgently wants him to be with her, and in his haste he drives recklessly, causing a fatal accident, but even in the afterlife the song’s narrator and his lover still have radar love.
Composition
Like other famous songs of the era — “Highway Star“, “Stairway to Heaven“, “Bohemian Rhapsody” — “Radar Love” is composed as a suite with several distinctive and quite different sections, although the tonality throughout remains similar.
The intro starts with a guitar riff in four separated phrases, consisting respectively of three, three, five and three notes. The first phrase is up from C♯ minor with three power chords slightly reminiscent of Deep Purple‘s “Smoke on the Water“. The second phrase heads down, the third is up again, higher than the previous, and the fourth leads all down to E major. According to bass player Rinus Gerritsen the intro was inspired by Carlos Santana.
During the chorus, starting in C♯ minor at 1:20, the band is joined by a brass section.
The song references Brenda Lee‘s “Coming On Strong” from 1966 as a “forgotten song”.
Impact
According to Rustyn Rose at Metalholic, the song “is a rock masterpiece, from its hooky chugging bassline, to its simple but unmistakable riffs, to its catchy anthemesque chorus. Even the jam which rides the song out is note for note classic.”
The song has been chosen by many magazines and websites as a Top 10 driving song, often ranking in the top three. It was chosen as the best radio song by readers of the Washington Post in November 2001. It was the #1 driving song in Australia (Australian Musician Magazine, November 2005), beating two AC/DC songs; and in Canada (BBC Canada, March 2006). In 2011 it received a vast number of votes as the “Ultimate Driving Song” in a poll on PlanetRock and “finished well ahead of its nearest rival, Deep Purple’s Highway Star.”
The bassline, guitar improv, and drum solo riff was used in the late 1970s and early 1980s as part of the opening credits and theme to the long running Australian current affairs programme Four Corners produced by ABC before it segues into the official theme, Robert Maxwell’s “Lost Patrol”.
Cover versions
According to radar-love.net, the song has been covered more than 500 times by, among others, Tribe 8, Ministry, Omen, U2, R.E.M., Ian Stuart Donaldson, Sun City Girls, Dutch group Centerfold, White Lion, Blue Man Group, Def Leppard, James Last, NWOBHM band Aragorn, Nine Pound Hammer, Oh Well, Joe Santana, the Space Lady, and the Pressure Boys. White Lion’s version charted at #59 on the Hot 100.
Goth-pop band Ghost Dance recorded a cover of the song on the B-side of their “Heart Full of Soul” single, itself a cover of the Yardbirds track.
A pre-Mercyful Fate band featuring King Diamond on vocals recorded a cover of the song. It is featured on King Diamond & Black Rose 20 Years Ago.
WaveGroup Sound covered the White Lion version of the song on Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s.
In popular culture
The song has been featured in several films including Wayne’s World 2 (1993), Detroit Rock City (1999), Baby Driver (2017), and The Tender Bar (2021).
