The B-side of the "Dream Police" single was "Heaven Tonight," previously released as the title track of Cheap Trick's previous studio album, 1978's Heaven Tonight. It is a disturbing song that was written by Rick Nielsen and Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson. "Heaven Tonight" was one of two songs on the album that involved death, "Auf Wiedersehen" being the other. In this song, potential death comes from drug abuse; Nielsen described it as an "anti-drug" song. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described the song as being "dreamily psychedelic." Mitchell Schneider of Rolling Stone noted a resemblance between "Heaven Tonight" and The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever."
Nielsen played a mandocello on the song, and other instruments include harpsichord and cello. Nielsen described the song as "a kind of parody on some of the drug songs of the sixties" and stated that "it could even be the basis for a movie." Petersson stated that they tried to make the song sound like Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir." Nielsen noted that the song's ending line: "you can never come down" was taken from a Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies song.
Read more about this topic: Dream Police (song)
Famous quotes containing the words heaven and/or tonight:
“Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
—Bible: New Testament, Philippians 2:9.
“Dont you know there are 200 temperance women in this county who control 200 votes. Why does a woman work for temperance? Because shes tired of liftin that besotted mate of hers off the floor every Saturday night and puttin him on the sofa so he wont catch cold. Tonight were for temperance. Help yourself to them cloves and chew them, chew them hard. Were goin to that festival tonight smelling like a hot mince pie.”
—Laurence Stallings (18941968)