In a previously unpublished interview with UCR from 2014, Eddie Money, who died on Sept. 13, recalled how the advent of social media opened him up to a new army of fans his wife didn’t necessarily approve of.

Asked about the strangest place he’d ever seen one of his songs popped up, Money noted that "a lot of these girls that dance in these gentlemen’s clubs, they love ‘Take Me Home Tonight,’ and they like to dance to ‘Shakin’’ and ‘Two Tickets to Paradise.’ When Twitter came out, I think that every chick that ever climbed the pole was trying to get in touch with me. My wife shut me down in 20 minutes.”

On the subject of “Take Me Home Tonight,” the 1986 song that featured Ronnie Spector, Money said he thinks it "was a big hit because it had two choruses in it. So I called up Ronnie Spector and I said, Ronnie, this is Eddie Money, and there’s a song here and it’s a real tribute to you. It’s called ‘Take Me Home Tonight’ and ‘be my little baby" -- a line from Spector's 1963 hit with the Ronettes "Be My Baby" -- "is the second part of the chorus. So she came down and did the video with me, which was fantastic. She looked amazing, and the video was great. We’ve been friends ever since. She’s a real sweetheart.”

Eddie Money and Ronnie Spector's ‘Take Me Home Tonight’

“Eddie’s voice was soulful rock ’n’ roll,” Spector said in a statement following Money’s death. “I just loved it. That’s really why we got together in the first place. … I loved his voice, he loved mine.”

She recalled that Money, who was 70 when he died, "had a crazy, great sense of humor, and was a real character, with the kind of positive vibe that we don’t see today, but we sure could use more of. Eddie brought joy to a lot [of] people with his music and performing, and he never stopped.”

 

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