The Lady In Red

Inspired by the memory of when Chris de Burgh first saw his wife Diane, and how men so often cannot even remember what their wives were wearing when they first met. The idea for the title came to him five months after he saw her wearing red in a nightclub. After an argument with his wife, de Burgh started writing ‘The Lady in Red’ but had a hard time finishing it and finding a title for it. He wanted to call it ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ but at that time, there was already a song with this title so he decided not to go with it. De Burgh wrote on his website that the song was not specifically about his wife Diane, but rather appreciating the most important people in our lives, who we often take for granted and how we often fail to notice what attracted us to another person in the first place. In this account, he was already married to Diane but didn’t realize it was her when he spotted her across the room. ‘The Lady in Red’ became a huge part of a cultural landscape in the UK, the listeners would argue whether it was the sweetest love song ever written or a pile of excessively sentimental musical mush.

Release Date: June 20, 1986

Songwriter/s: Chris de Burgh

Label: A&M

Chart Rankings: In the US, the song peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 2 on both charts; the Adult Contemporary and the Cash Box. In the UK, it topped the Official Charts Company. The Lady in Red has topped the charts in several countries around the world including Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Norway, Poland and South Africa. In other countries such as Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and Sweden it reached the top 10 charts.

Artist’s age on Release Date: Christopher John Davison was 38 years old when he released this song.

Cover Versions: Very few amateur artists covered this song on Youtube.