- published: 10 Mar 2009
- views: 2437267
"Hot in the City" is a 1982 song by Billy Idol, released on his self-titled album. It charted at #23 in the U.S. and #58 in the UK. A re-release of the song in the UK in 1987 reached #13.
There are two versions of the video. The first version (the 1982 version) starts off with a girl walking into a record store. She picks up a Billy Idol record and the song starts to play. The video features scenes from New York City, interspersed with stock footage of nuclear bomb tests. The second version (the 1987 version) was banned by MTV because it showed Idol's girlfriend Perri Lister nailed to a cross toward the end of the video. The later version was included on the DVD edition of The Very Best of Billy Idol: Idolize Yourself.
Although the released version of the song contains a verse in which Idol shouts "New York," other versions of the song were recorded for various radio stations, including one in which he shouts "Amarillo", "Minneapolis", or "New Haven."
This song was used as the introduction of Booker, the TV series spin-off of 21 Jump Street. It is also featured in the 1988 film hit Big, starring Tom Hanks.
Stranger, stranger, stranger, stranger
It's hot here at night, lonely, black and quiet
On a hot summer night
Don't be afraid of the world we made
On a hot summer night
'Cause when a long-legged lovely walks by
Yeah you can see the look in her eye
Then you know that it's
Hot in the city, hot in the city tonight, tonight
Hot in the city, hot in the city tonight, tonight
Stranger, stranger
For all the dreams and schemes,
people are as they seem
On a hot summer night
Don't be no fun, don't forget you're young
On a hot summer night
A sometime someone you're not
Don't wait to see what you got
'Cause you know that you're
We'll walk until my feet drop
I'm a train when I'm hateful
Yeah, lay right down now
And ride until your head breaks
I'm a-walkin' 'til my brain pops
I will move with the beat now
I'm a chain 'round an A-bomb
I'm a ribbon in the heat now