Talking In Your Sleep by The Romantics

Album: In Heat (1983)

Charted: 3

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"Talking In Your Sleep" is the biggest hit of The Romantics' career. In fact, it's their only Top 10 hit, and only one other song by them ("One in a Million") even made it to the Top 40. Contrast that with the number of times you've heard The Romantics' "What I Like About You," which only made it to #49. Written by the band, this singer learns his lover's secrets when she reveals them in her sleep. Luckily for the guy, she says lots of nice things about him.
Your geeky little takeaway for this song's subject: The phenomenon of talking in your sleep is known by the scientific name of "somniloquy," an unexpectedly beautiful word for it. Somniloquy is related to the same stage of sleep that produces rapid eye movement (what R.E.M. stands for), and it represents a "motor breakthrough" in which words you're saying in a dream become spoken out loud. The lyrics of this song, of course, refer to a lover who is professing affection for the singer in their subconscious only. Note for nighttime lovelorn lurkers: Things people say in their sleep probably have nothing to do with reality, unless you really are being chased through a submarine by PeeWee Herman riding a Pokemon at the moment.
In the UK, The Romantics' version didn't chart, so "Talking In Your Sleep" was covered by the band Bucks Fizz. While unheard-of in the US, they took it to #15 on the UK Singles chart, beating The Romantics with their own song.
As usual, MTV helped boost The Romantics' success right around this time with videos of their songs. In Greg Prato's book MTV Ruled the World, Romantics' lead singer Jimmy Marinos talks about this song: "That was the last song recorded for the album In Heat. All we had was a backtrack, the instrumental part of the song. And we realized it was too good a track to leave unfinished. So everybody put their heads together, and in a couple of days, we finished up the song melodically and lyrically." Ha also mentions that the video was filmed at 8:00 in the morning in Detroit, surrounded by girls in their jammies, at what was deemed "not really rock 'n' roll hours." So if they look like they just woke up, that's because they did - and it works great!
In the season 2 Stranger Things episode "MADMAX," this plays while Nancy is helping Steve with his essay in the school parking lot.

Comments: 2

Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn December 24th 1983 the Romantics performed "Talking In Your Sleep" on the ABC-TV program 'American Bandstand'...
Two months earlier on October 2nd it entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; and on January 2nd, 1984 it peaked at #3 (for 3 weeks) and spent 21 weeks on the Top 100...
On December 10th it reached #1 (for 2 weeks) on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart.
Esskayess from Dallas, TxI always paired this song with Night Ranger's 'When You Close Your Eyes (Do You Dream About Me).' Fun to precede this song with that one.

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