I Just Died In Your Arms

This rock song was written by Nick Van Eede of Cutting Crew and it became their most successful song, reaching number 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number 4 on the UK Singles.  It appeared on their debut album Broadcast and this underrated collection of simple, heartfelt love songs and up-tempo pop became a real crowd pleaser.  Cutting Crew featured frontman and songwriter Nick Van Eede, bass player Colin Farley, drummer Martin Beedle and Canadian guitarist Kevin MacMichael who passed away in 2002.  The lyrics of the song were inspired by a real romantic affair that Nick Van Eede with one of his former girlfriends that he had been separated from for about a year and he was pining away for her until he eventually met her on a New Year’s Eve.  The meeting led to a brief affair that apparently lasted only a night, but as they say nothing is better than sex with the ex.

Nick said that when he woke the next morning, he wrote the basic lyrics within an hour and wrote and recorded the demo completely within three days.  Eede said the legendary line “I just died in your arms tonight” came to him while he was in bed with her that night.  According to Eede, the next morning he wrote down the line.  The brief affair eventually led to the pair having a daughter named Lauren, who was born on May 13, 1986.  Eede said the other famous line, “I should’ve walked away”, was written into the song because he was overcome with worry and fear that them being together didn’t feel right.  The song was one of the four singles released from the studio album the others being ‘Any Colour’, ‘One for the Mockingbird’ and ‘I’ve Been in Love Before’.

I am pretty sure that the guy in this song is not literally dying.  He says, “It was a long hot night, She made it easy, she made it feel right, But now it’s over the moment has gone, I followed my hands not my head, I know I was wrong, Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight”, as he indicates that he died of embarrassment, feeling shame the next morning, doing a facepalm for getting sexually involved with this woman again when he knew a relationship was not in the cards for them.  He realizes that he made a mistake and that it is probably going to be a costly one that hurts.  We have all probably done some things in the heat of the moment, that were thrilling at the time, but later when we look back at these events, we realize that there won’t be “an easy way to get out of this”, especially after “some kind of kiss”.

Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must have been something you said
I just died in your arms tonight
I keep looking for something I can’t get
Broken hearts lie all around me
And I don’t see an easy way to get out of this
Her diary, it sits by the bedside table
The curtains are closed, the cats in the cradle
Who would’ve thought that a boy like me could come to this
Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been something you said
I just died in your arms tonight
Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been some kind of kiss
I should’ve walked away, I should’ve walked away
Is there any just cause for feeling like this?
On the surface, I’m a name on a list
I try to be discreet, but then blow it again
I’ve lost and found, it’s my final mistake
She’s loving by proxy, no give and all take
‘Cause I’ve been thrilled to fantasy one too many times
Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been something you said
I just died in your arms tonight
Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been some kind of kiss
I should’ve walked away, I should’ve walked away
It was a long hot night
She made it easy, she made it feel right
But now it’s over the moment has gone
I followed my hands not my head, I know I was wrong
Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been something you said
I just died in your arms tonight
Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been some kind of kiss
I should’ve walked away, I should’ve walked away

The challenge today is to focus on this song and use it for inspiration in any form of creative expression (including but not limited to short stories, a piece of flash fiction, poems, lyrics, artwork, photography, (etc.) that you can share with the writing community.  Alternatively, if you are a musician, and you have played this song solo or in a group, it would be awesome if you could post a video to showcase your own work.  You could write about how you learned to play the chords or how you learned the lyrics. There is no need to stick with this song, as if you like to write about another Cutting Crew song, or another song about making a mistake, or something that didn’t work put as planned, that would work.  You could write about a song that makes a reference to being in someone’s arms or dying.  This song contains a reference to a Harry Chapin song with the lyrics, “the cats in the cradle” and if you have played that two-person game with a circle of string where you grab it with your hands to make different shapes then tell us about that.  If you think this is a reference to an old myth that cats steal the breath of babies in the cradle, killing them, then go with that.  You could also write about getting back with an ex-lover and how that worked out for you.  Write about a lesson that you learned, about a lost love, or if you were able to move on from regret.

The whole point of this MM Music challenge is to get you to think, to trigger something so that you can show how creative you are and everyone is welcome to participate.  Do you think that people are capable of learning from their mistakes, or are they likely to just keep repeating the same ones over and over again?  Does a person need to be able to admit that they made a mistake before they can learn from it?  Does learning history helps us to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past?  There are plenty of topics that you could choose to write about today along these lines, so happy writing.

Dylan Hughes has next Friday, October 11 with her First Line Friday and then I will be back on Friday, October 18 with another MM Music Challenge where we will discuss the song ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’.  When you are finished writing your post, create a ping back to this post, but you can also place your link in the comments section below if you desire.  This Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie MM Music challenge has a special feature called Mr. Linky, which will allow you to instantly link your post after you click the Mr. Linky Button, and then follow the directions that are given.