In the Air Tonight

Did You Know?

• The music video, directed by Stuart Orme, animates the photograph of Collins's face from the cover of the Face Value album and includes a spectral figure in a window.
• Collins performed the song at Live Aid on the same calendar day in both Philadelphia and London, playing it on a piano.
• American rapper Lil' Kim released a reworking titled "In the Air Tonite" in 2001 as a duet with Collins for the tribute album Urban Renewal.

Background and recording

Phil Collins wrote "In the Air Tonight" while processing the emotional fallout from his 1980 divorce from his first wife, Andrea Bertorelli. He later described the lyrics as coming to him in a flash during a studio session, admitting he wasn't entirely sure what the song was about, but that it was filled with anger, despair, and frustration. The divorce also prompted him to take a break from Genesis in 1979, though the band reunited that October to work on the album Duke. When Collins played the track for bandmates Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks, he thought it was too basic for them. Critics have called the song a pioneer of experimental pop and a rock oddity classic, citing influences from Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel, while others have labeled it a soft rock staple. The music is built around chords from a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synth, layered over a Roland CR-78 drum machine pattern (the Disco-2 setting with extra programming), processed electric guitar, and vocoder effects that intensify on certain words. The mood simmers with controlled anger until the final chorus, where a sudden, thunderous drum burst releases all the tension. The track is in D minor and moves at 96 beats per minute. Collins told Mix magazine he bought the drum machine specifically to channel his personal turmoil into music, saying he needed to get the sounds out of him. He improvised the lyrics on the spot, simply fooling around with chords and singing whatever came to mind, which he later found both frightening and satisfying. The song is famous for its gated reverb drum sound. Ozzy Osbourne called that drum fill the best ever, still sounding awesome. For the U.S. single release, Atlantic Records head Ahmet Ertegun suggested adding extra drums that play throughout the track until the signature crash arrives.

Legacy

The song appeared in the 1983 movie Risky Business, playing when the characters played by Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay have sex on a subway train. In 1984, it was used in a scene from the first episode of the television series Miami Vice, which film and television critic Matt Zoller Seitz cited as why the song has been stamped as "Property of Michael Mann" for years. The song received a new wave of attention from its use in the series, enough for it to rise in sales outside the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 102. It played in the pilot episode of the 2013 TV series The Americans, a direct homage to the Miami Vice pilot. The song was remixed in 1988 by Ben Liebrand for his weekly radio show appearance; the mix was picked up by Virgin Records for an official release, reaching No. 4 on the UK chart. In 2006, it appeared in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories during a concert mission. The song gained notoriety again when used in a 2007 Cadbury's Dairy Milk advert featuring a man in a gorilla suit playing the drum fill; Collins stated in a BBC interview that he thought the advert was 'fantastic'. The song eventually reached No. 14 on the UK singles chart that year. It was also included on the animated comedy film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. The song appeared in the 2009 movie The Hangover when boxer Mike Tyson mimics playing the drum break. Rolling Stone noted "The Hangover marked the moment where the Fill broke through to another level of pop-cultural immortality."

Marilyn Manson version

On April 16, 2025, Marilyn Manson put out a cover of Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" as a standalone single, meant to drum up interest for an upcoming tour and the band's 2024 album "One Assassination Under God – Chapter 1." The CD single, limited to 4,000 copies globally, vanished within four hours of going on sale. It also included a B-side called "As Sick as the Secrets Of (Sleep)," which reworks the earlier track "As Sick as the Secrets Within." Tyler Bates produced the cover, with Gil Sharone handling the drums. Musically, it sticks close to the original, keeping that famous drum break, but layers in gothic rock touches like distorted guitars, ambient piano, and screamed vocals. The single did well on the charts. In the UK, it hit number two on the Physical Singles Chart, number 15 on the Singles Sales Chart, and number 37 on the Singles Downloads Chart. In the US, it landed at number one on Billboard's Hard Rock Digital Song Sales, marking the band's third chart-topper there. It also became their fifth top-ten entry on the Hot Hard Rock Songs chart and reached number 22 on the Digital Song Sales chart, their highest placement ever on that list. Critics had mixed reactions. Metal Insider's Zenae Zukowski praised it for keeping the "signature ominous edge" seen in Manson's earlier covers like "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and "Tainted Love," calling it a "dark, cinematic tone" suited for a modern horror film. On the other end, Headbangers gave it zero stars, describing it as "an angry toaster trying to seduce a haunted fax machine in a dark alley behind Hot Topic." The cover runs 5:02, while the B-side is 5:00.

Cover versions

A cover by Miami rock band Nonpoint appeared in the 2006 film adaptation of Miami Vice. The Protomen included their version on their 2015 album The Cover Up, which later gained traction when it was used in the third season of Cobra Kai in 2021, becoming the seventh most Shazamed song in the first half of that year. In 2016, Mic Lowry released an adaptation called "Oh Lord," which reached number 54 on the UK Singles Chart. In This Moment recorded a cover for their 2017 album Ritual. Marissa Nadler and Stephen Brodsky put out a cover in 2019. For the 2023 Monday Night Football season, Chris Stapleton, Snoop Dogg, and Cindy Blackman Santana teamed up for a cover version as the theme song.