Tyler, who died this week, once described herself as a ‘guilty pleasure’ singer. She deserves better fans than that. She is a guiltless pleasure for meBonnie Tyler singing at the Maison de la Chimie in Paris, 1984. Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/AFP via Getty Images Thu Jul 09 2026 - 13:07 • 4 MIN READTotal Eclipse of the Heart is one of the best rock songs ever produced. It’s a swooping work of orchestral rock melodrama – a song that is one endless crescendo. And it would be nothing without the soulful, massive, gravelly voice of Bonnie Tyler. The writer Jim Steinman’s usual muse Meat Loaf was apparently annoyed that Steinman gave it to her. No offence to Mr Loaf, but he wouldn’t have done half as good a job as Tyler. It’s a huge song and she eats it alive.Tyler died this week in Portugal at the age of 75 after emergency intestinal surgery in May. She told me about Meat Loaf’s annoyance with Steinman when I interviewed her back in 2014. She also told me in no-uncertain terms that Steinman finished that song with her in mind. And God, why wouldn’t he. She was a huge-haired, huge-voiced rock’n’roll chanteuse. And she sang for me several times over the course of the interview for demonstration purposes, which means that I can forever say that Bonnie Tyler serenaded me.[ Bonnie Tyler: ‘There’s nothing I won’t talk about’Opens in new window ]She was appearing at the “Electric Ireland Power House” stage at Electric Picnic – a power ballad themed stage which was being promoted by mullet wigs and lip-syncing videos. She was a pro and made sure to mention the upcoming event every few minutes. She was also a dream interviewee – warm and open with a huge rasping laugh and sense of humour about herself and her career (she cracked up laughing just thinking about the various YouTube parody versions of her Total Eclipse of the Heart video). She was also, and journalists love this in our subjects, happy to chat well beyond our allotted time. She liked to talk, she said.She was born Gaynor Hopkins, a coalminer’s daughter in the town of Mumbles in Wales with a mother who sang opera for pleasure. Her mother still sang, though without the words, well into an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, she told me. The power in her voice, she reckoned, came from opera.Tyler always loved music – she waxed lyrical about her love of old 1960s and 1970s album covers – and began singing in clubs in Wales where she met her husband, club manager, one-time judo champion and property developer Robert Sullivan. She was seen singing by the talent scout Roger Bell and that led to a recording contract. Soon she fell in with the songwriters Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe who gave Tyler her first hits, the folk-pop classics Lost in France and It’s a Heartache. If you listen to Lost in France now it sounds nothing like her power rock heyday. In that song she has a purer, gentler, folkier tone. That changed after surgery to remove nodules from her larynx in 1976.What emerged afterwards was a more idiosyncratic, huskier voice filled with crevices and overtones. “I think [the surgeon] removed a bit too much,” she told me, though she also admitted that she didn’t rest her voice as advised at the time. “I was a naughty girl and wouldn’t stop talking.” I suspect that surgery also gave her the rich, smoky laugh which she demonstrated at this point.It’s that new voice that made Jim Steinman want to give her Total Eclipse of the Heart which was originally, as befits a song so gigantic, called Vampires in Love and was intended for a musical version of Nosferatu. Her voice was the perfect vehicle for such lush, operatic, emotive rock. It led to a second phase in her career, which also included the excellent power pop banger I Need a Hero (also written by Steinman) and the Creedence Clearwater cover Have you Ever Seen the Rain? (better than the Creedence version in my opinion; She really wants to know if you’ve ever seen the rain). She was, correctly, nominated for several Grammy Awards and, incorrectly, never won one. She represented Britain in the Eurovision in 2013. She never stopped performing and had festivals and gigs booked for later this year.Tyler and Sullivan never had children despite trying, though in a relatively recent interview with BBC Sounds she said they were content with that: “We’re fine. We’re happy”. When I spoke to her over the phone in 2014, she was living her best life splitting her time between Wales and Portugal. Her extended family of siblings, nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews were sleeping off hangovers all over her house after attending the annual “Mumbles raft race” the night before. “We’re like the Waltons here,” she said.Tyler was perfectly content being a power ballad idol and often a listener’s “guilty pleasure” – though in my opinion nobody should feel guilty for liking the incredible singing of Bonnie Tyler. Guilty pleasures are for cowards and she deserves better fans than that. She is a guiltless pleasure for me. And the best way to pay tribute to her is to sing Total Eclipse of the Heart at a local karaoke this weekend loudly, proudly and unironically. Tyler was gifted a Karaoke machine once when Total Eclipse of the Heart was voted the most popular song to sing at karaoke. “It comes out every Christmas,” she told me. I hope she used it right to the end. IN THIS SECTION