The death of the queen of rock in Switzerland at the age of 83 leaves a monumental musical legacy. From his union, in all senses, with Ike Turner in the sixties -from whom he suffered mistreatment that caused him post-traumatic stress-, until his resurrection in the eighties, the number of songs that his vocal power immortalized with his unique combination rock, pop, funk and rhythm
In a life that she herself declared when presenting the HBO documentary Tina in 2021 that “it was not good, the good does not balance the bad”, this topic that was luckily rejected by Donna Summer, Bucks Fizz and Cliff Richard is more than just a song. Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken, she sings with elegant and soft bitter taste in the video through the streets of New York in a denim jacket. She also saw the theme as too pop and accepted it only if she could bring it to her ground. And she carried it in every way.
Another of his catchiest, most remembered and melancholic songs, was written by Mark Knopfler. In fact, initially it was a song for Dire Straits but they finally appreciated that it would be better heard in the voice of a woman. Tina stressed in her autobiography on this song by a sex worker that “most of us have had to sell ourselves out at some point, one way or another.” And that when she sang the song she thought about when she decided to continue with her abusive husband Ike despite wanting to escape from her, “the sadness of doing something you don’t want to do, every day, every day.”
This theme is inextricably linked to the third installment of the Mad Max saga. And indeed Mad Max and Thunderdome allowed Tina Turner to appear in the post-apocalyptic film alongside Mel Gibson as Aunt Mistress, the corrupt leader of Negociudad.
Written for Bonnie Tyler, who did not achieve notable success with this song, Tina Turner rescued it a year later, added her vocal strength and a new production and made it without a doubt her volcanic anthem and her own definition.
Let’s stay together, River deep, mountain high, Nutbush city limits or his GoldenEye for the James Bond film with Pierce Brosnan could have been on this list without any problem, but Proud Mary could certainly not be missing, an ode to freedom that Ike and Tina Turner took Credence Clearwater Revival two years after its release and transformed country rock into powerful funk. “We never do anything nice and easy, we make it nice and strong. We’re going to start easy and end hard,” he says with a smile in this video.
