Joey Tempest Just Asked Europe If They Like ‘The Final Countdown’

Europe vocalist Joey Tempest revealed he’d finally asked his bandmates if they like playing “The Final Countdown” – 40 years after its release.

The signature track was released in the U.S. in May 1986 and reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. The video has accrued 1.4 billion views on YouTube.

“It’s a strange relationship,” Tempest told Classic Album Reviews in a recent interview. “It has its own life, and lives out there. … I asked the guys the other day, actually, ‘So, do you mind playing it?’ No, they all love playing it live.”

He added that they only interacted with the song on stage, and none of them ever listen to it privately. “Of course, you can hear it maybe on an advert that we’ve approved or a Formula 1 [show]. My dad was into Formula 1, and he was so proud when they used it…that’s kind of nice and heartwarming for me.

“The London Symphony Orchestra recorded it and my dad was, like, ‘Oh, this is so awesome.’ So that was quite nice.”

Watch Europe’s Video for ’The Final Countdown’

What Were Joey Tempest’s Expectations for ‘The Final Countdown’?

Tempest came up with the famous keyboard line several years before Europe tracked the final version. He found lyrical inspiration from David Bowie’s first hit, “Space Oddity.” In 2015 he recalled Bowie had been “talking about ‘floating in a tin can’ – I was very taken by that. That was in my mind.

“I had the music first, and I played it over and over and over again in my basement. I sang different things until I got to ‘the final countdown,’ which fitted it really well. My thought was, the world is expanding and we’re leaving…the ‘Space Oddity’ lyric really sparked that idea.”

In 2016 Tempest revealed that he hadn’t even expected the track to become a single. “It was meant to be an opening for the live show,” he explained. “We were putting out our third album and we wanted a really grand opening.”

In his latest interview he reflected: “It doesn’t matter if we play a family festival in Denmark or a heavy metal festival in Germany. People give us energy back, and we give energy with that song…it is a great song live. It’s fantastic.”