Tina Turner Rocks Back on Previously Unreleased Song ‘Hot For You Baby’

Tina Turner famously left it all on the stage when she performed. The late rock icon also left behind some unheard songs from her career-defining 1984 Private Dancer album and now we can hear one of those tracks thanks to the release on Thursday (Jan. 23) of the previously unheard album outtake “Hot For You Baby.”

The uptempo rocker featuring Turner’s signature gritty, urgent vocals over a galloping beat and a chorus of male backing vocalists repeating the title phrase back to her will be included on the upcoming 40th anniversary edition of Turner’s fifth solo album, which was originally released in May 1984.

The collection helped push Turner back into the public consciousness thanks to a handful of now-iconic hit singles, including “Stay Together,” “What’ Love Got to Do With It,” “Better Be Good to Me” and the title track.

Singing in her husky, growly voice, Turner belts, “The way that you’ve been moving to the music as you’re dancing/ Sweet sight to see/ But I can’t take it anymore, that’s why I’m out here on the floor/ So, won’t you dance with me?,” before the track rolls into the burning chorus: “I’m hot for you, baby/ I wanna love you/ I’m hot for you baby/ How hot can you get?”

The barreling chronicle of all the ways a lover’s dancing is getting her hot and bothered has a brief, classically early 1980s wailing guitar solo and plenty of cowbell. But despite fitting into the rock/soul groove Turner explored on the album, it was left off the final version. Australian singer John Paul Young (“Standing in the Rain”) originally released the song in 1979 to little notice. It was written by fellow Australian musicians George Young and Harry Vanda and produced by John Carter, who also produced the album’s title song.

Private Dancer ran up to No. 3 on the Billboard 200 album chart and included the Hot 100 No. 1 smash “What’s Love Got to Do With It.” The previously unreleased song will be featured on the anniversary release due out on March 21, which will also come in a 5CD/Blu-Ray version that will rope in more never-before-released songs, live performances and music videos. Among the special extras is an upgraded 55-minute Private Dancer Tour show filmed in 1985 that featured guest spots from David Bowie and Bryan Adams.

Private Dancer marked an only-in-Hollywood-style revival for Turner, who had set the world on fire in the 1960s and early 70s when she and then-husband Ike Turner released a series of career-defining hits including “River Deep, Mountain High,” their signature cover of CCR’s “Proud Mary” and “Nutbush City Limits,” among others.

The couple split in 1976, after what Tina Turner later said were years of physical abuse from Ike, leading to nearly a decade in the pop wilderness for Turner, who struggled to gain attention with her solo career as she played Las Vegas showrooms and released a series of solo albums to little notice.

Her fortunes were turned around by Private Dancer, which leaned into Turner’s many strengths — vulnerability, power vocals, sensuality, grit — and earned her three Grammy Awards, including record of the year for the slow-burn ballad “What’s Love Got to Do With It”; the latter also served as the title of a lauded 1993 semi-autobiographical biopic that earned stars Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne Oscar nominations.

After her tumultuous years with Ike, Turner found love again with German music exec Erwin Bach, who she married in 2013 after nearly 30 years together. After years out of the public eye, Turner died in her home in Switzerland at age 83 in May 2023.

Listen to “Hot For You Baby” below.