REO Speedwagon – Can’t Fight This Feeling (Live Aid 1985)

REO Speedwagon performing at Live Aid in front of 100,000 people in the John F. Kennedy Stadium, Philadelphia USA on the 13th July, 1985. The event was organised by Sir Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for the Ethiopian famine disaster. Broadcast across the world via one of the largest satellite link-ups of all time, the concerts were seen by around 40% of the global population.
REO Speedwagon were introduced by Chevy Chase.

“Can’t Fight This Feeling” – Single by REO Speedwagon from the album Wheels Are Turnin’
B-side: “Break His Spell”
Released: December 17, 1984
Recorded: August 1984
Songwriter: Kevin Cronin
Producers: Kevin Cronin, Gary Richrath, Alan Gratzer
Charted No.1 in US and No.16 in UK

Cronin said that he wrote the verses years before, and had made a demo of it when he left REO Speedwagon briefly in the mid-70s. Cronin finished writing the song in Hawaii while supposedly on a break from composing for the Wheels Are Turnin’ album.

The roots of “Can’t Fight This Feeling” went back, like many of Cronin’s songs, to an old relationship. On the surface, the song is about a guy who’s finally admitting he’s in love with someone he’s known for a long time; more directly, the singer and songwriter later explained, it was “about my inability to have the courage to express myself.”

It took 10 years for Kevin Cronin to complete the song that became one of REO Speedwagon’s most definitive power ballads. When he finally delivered it, he hated the title, but he couldn’t fight it anymore.

The other REO Speedwagon members referred to “Can’t Fight This Feeling” as “that stupid ballad” until it became a charting hit.