Tina Turner: Seven songs and the stories behind them

Highlights: Tina Turner died on May 24 at the age of 83 after a long illness at her home in Küsnacht near Zurich. Born in the USA, she became an absolute world star through her music in the eighties at the latest. Her sound shaped pop music and numerous artists who came after her. Here are seven of her best songs and the stories behind them:»Proud Mary« (1971), »Nutbush City Limits« ( 1973), »We Need Another Hero« ( 1985)

The queen of rock 'n' roll is dead. What remains are her songs, the pleasant shivers that run down your spine when you listen to them – and the stories that Tina Turner expressed in her songs.

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Tina Turner on 9 March 2000 at the Echo Awards in Hamburg

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CHRISTIAN CHARISIUS / REUTERS

Tina Turner died on May 24 at the age of 83 after a long illness at her home in Küsnacht near Zurich. Born in the USA, she became an absolute world star through her music in the eighties at the latest. Her sound shaped pop music and numerous artists who came after her. Here are seven of their best songs and the stories behind them.

»Proud Mary« (1971)

In 1971, Tina and her husband Ike turned the rather leisurely country-rock hit of Credence Clearwater Revival into a more soulful and at the same time rockier version: They start »Proud Mary« sensitively spoken and sung very restrainedly, then it breaks out of them, an explosive and epic funk ode to freedom. The song earned them a Grammy award and became a trademark of Tina Turner after her separation from Ike, and in 1993 she re-recorded it solo for the soundtrack to her film "What's Love Got To Do With It?". In 1999, Cher and Elton John sang the song along with Tina Turner. When Beyoncé paid tribute to Tina Turner at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, she sang "Proud Mary" in her honor. Three years later, the two performed the song together at the Grammy Awards.

»Nutbush City Limits« (1973)

This massive rock number is a swan song to her hometown in Tennessee: Nutbush, a stuffy small town. This is where Anna Mae Bullock, as Turner was called at the time, grew up and, like her father, picked cotton on a plantation. "You go to the field on week days/And have a picnic on Labor Day," she sings. It was the place Turner never liked, from which she wanted to run away as soon as possible. "A church house, gin house/a school house, outhouse," she sings, "A church house, a cotton ginning house, a schoolhouse, an outbuilding" – there wasn't much more for her, she wanted to get out. And in this song, he met "exactly the mixture of sex, longing and despair in which a lot of young people could find themselves at the time," as SPIEGEL editor Tobias Rapp puts it in his obituary for Tina Turner.

»What's Love Got To Do With It?« (1984)

This song is usually understood as a throwback to her marriage to Ike Turner, which she finally ended in 1976 after years of domestic violence. She had to start all over again at the bottom - and at the age of 44 she gave the starting signal for her solo career with »What's Love Got To Do With It?«. Interestingly, the song had previously been offered to Cliff Richard, Donna Summer and Bucks Fizz, but she made it her own, singing it defiantly and snotty. In the music video, she prances through the streets of New York in jeans and black leather, showing off her iconic '80s hairstyle. The song was her only number one hit in the U.S. and earned her four Grammys.

»Private Dancer« (1984)

The eponymous song of her comeback album, which made Tina Turner a world star, tells the perspective of a strip dancer. Like »Nutbush City Limits«, it's about getting out of a poor background, about the dreams that you have and can pursue in spite of everything. It's the story of a self-empowerment that Turner also went through by breaking away from her ex-husband Ike, and that also made her a feminist icon. The song was written by Mark Knopfler, the frontman of the band Dire Straits, who was of the opinion that the content was not suitable for a male singing voice. Tina Turner later said in an interview that she didn't even know that the song was about a sex worker.

»We Don't Need Another Hero« (1985)

This is the theme song for the post-apocalyptic film »Mad Max« starring Mel Gibson. Tina Turner not only sings, she also stars as the unscrupulous, chainmail-clad blonde Aunty Entity – a role she liked because she was "strong and resilient." She lost so much, and then she went through so much trying to get the men in her world to respect her," Turner said. I could empathize with their struggles because I experienced them myself." The movie outfit (or at least a similar outfit) is worn by Turner in the video for the song, which warns against false hopes and oppression.

»The Best« (1989)

Bonnie Tyler had only one small hit with this song in 1988, which hardly anyone remembers – Tina Turner's cover version, on the other hand, became a huge success and an anthem of the 80s. If TikTok had existed in 1989, the catchy tune would certainly have dominated the video network. Even so, the song has been ubiquitous ever since, often understood as "Simply the Best", and is repeatedly played in commercials, at sporting events or at weddings – and at 80s parties anyway.

»GoldenEye« (1995)

Singing a Bond song is at the very latest the accolade for an artist. Not that Tina Turner has to prove that she is an absolute superstar after her many hits. For Pierce Brosnan's debut film as 007, she sang »GoldenEye«, written by Bono and The Edge of the band U2. Turner also had to contribute a lot. "Bono sent me the worst demo tape. He kind of threw it together, like he thought I wasn't doing it anyway," she told the BBC in 2018. She didn't recognize the key or melody and had to put some things together. "I had to work really hard. That's when I knew I could sing anything that was put in front of me."

You can read an obituary for the artist and how she turned her life into her greatest work of art here. You can see the ups and downs of the rock icon in photos here. You can read about the reactions caused by her death here.

With material from AFP