Peak
1
Weeks
24
Score
3,795
Chart Year
1987
The accompanying music video for "I Think We're Alone Now" was directed entirely by Tobin, and shot in numerous shopping malls in Utah, which echoed the way her early career had been promoted: Fashion Place Mall (Murray, Utah), Crossroads Mall (Salt Lake City, Utah), 49th Street Galleria (Murray, Utah) and Ogden City Mall (Ogden, Utah). Elements of the video were filmed in the now demolished Bull Ring Centre in Birmingham, UK. The video was featured in the 2012 film Ted and the song was also on the soundtrack and appears in its sequel. In 2019, a new video directed by Marc Trojanowski, featuring the re-recorded 2019 version of the song and filmed in various locations around Los Angeles, was released online.
This was originally recorded by Tommy James & the Shondells in 1967. It was written by Ritchie Cordell, a producer at Roulette Records who wrote many of their hits. Their version hit #4 in the US. Tiffany (last name: Darwisch) was just 15 years old when this song was released in the summer of 1987. She was 16 when the album went to #1 in January 1988, making her the youngest female singer to top the US albums chart, and also the first singer born in the '70s to hit the top spot. Tiffany was just 13 years old when she started recording with producer George Tobin, who met her a year earlier and was impressed with her talent. Tobin, who owned his own studio in Los Angeles, had produced Kim Carnes ("More Love") and Smokey Robinson ("Being With You"). He couldn't find an appropriate manager for Tiffany, so he handled the business side of her affairs after signing her to a production deal. Finding good, original songs is hard for an unknown singer, since the top songwriters want to place their cuts with established acts, so Tobin looked for cover songs for Tiffany, and came up with "I Think We're Alone Now," which she wasn't thrilled with but recorded anyway. Tobin then shopped her to record companies, and after being turned down by Clive Davis and about a dozen others, found a taker in Steve Moir at MCA Records. Unfortunately, Moir left MCA soon after, and the company gave Tiffany little support. It became clear that she wasn't going to succeed through traditional means, so Tobin went to the MCA "special projects" division and hatched an idea: the mall tour. Starting in Paramus, New Jersey, the 16-year-old Tiffany toured shopping malls, singing for free to whoever would listen. It was a novel approach, and it worked very well, especially when media outlets covered the story of this teenager who sang for shoppers. The mall crowd (young girls) was a great fit for Tiffany, who found a way to reach this audience long before there was Twitter. Many things can happen when hormone-ravaged teenagers find themselves alone. The song is very innocent, but it's open to interpretation. In a Songfacts interview with Tiffany, she said: "It was mysterious, it was a little cheeky, but there wasn't anything really bad. It was just a little rebellious and a little bit what a teenager feels: spending time with that person, checking that person out, and having that alone time with them, no matter what happens. I definitely have heard some stories about where that song has gone over the years. With some fans I'm like, 'Too much information, thank you very much.'" The song that replaced this at #1 in the US was Billy Idol's version of "Mony Mony," which was also a cover of a Tommy James & the Shondells song. Tiffany's producer George Tobin shot video during her mall tour which was cobbled together to make the video. Most of the footage comes from late in the tour when her crowds grew larger. Tiffany recalled to Billboard magazine in a 2011 interview: "When I heard that my hit song had went #1, I was washing dishes. I was doing my chores because I was a teenager, of course. My manager called me and said 'Congratulations, you have the number one single in the country.' I said, 'You know what? I have to get off the phone because I have to finish my chores otherwise I'm going to be busted and I won't be able to do anything.' And, he's like, 'You don't get it'... but I had to finish those chores." In the 2012 movie Ted, the stuffed bear's abductor dances to this song while watching the video. Knowing that he can't resist dancing to the song, Ted uses it against him in the 2015 sequel when he plays the song to a group of guys dressed like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sure enough, the perp starts dancing. The song also appears in the movie Jawbreaker, starring Rose McGowan, and in the 2015 episode of The Goldbergs, "The Adam Bomb." The British girl group Girls Aloud took this to #4 on the UK chart in 2006. Tiffany released several albums when she reached adulthood, recording in a variety of different styles, but often doing heartfelt ballads. She also co-wrote most of her later work, and even did some of her own production. No matter what she does though, she knows that audiences will want to hear this song, and she's happy to oblige. "Usually, I have that song at the end of the show and I'm looking forward to that moment and that excitement," she told Songfacts in 2017. "I don't look at it as a bad thing. It opens the doors to allows me to continue to do music and tell my story now. There still are some hurdles sometimes because I'm painted as the 'I Think We're Alone Now' mall tour girl,' but I just keep pounding the pavement doing what I love." Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day covered this in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. The song was appropriate for the time, as most of the world was stuck at home to keep the virus from spreading. "While we've all been in quarantine I've been reflecting on the things that matter the most in my life," Armstrong posted. "Family, friends and of course music. I recorded a cover of Tommy James and the Shondells 'I think we're alone now' in my bedroom. I figure if we have to spend this time in isolation at least we can be alone together."
Children, behave That's what they say when we're together And watch how you play They don't understand And so we're Running just as fast as we can Holding on to one another's hand Trying to get away into the night And then you put your arms around me And we tumble to the ground and then you say I think we're alone now There doesn't seem to be anyone around I think we're alone now The beating of our hearts is the only sound Look at the way we gotta hide what we're doin' 'Cause what would they say If they ever knew? And so we're Running just as fast as we can Holding on to one another's hand Trying to get away into the night And then you put your arms around me And we tumble to the ground and then you say I think we're alone now (alone now) There doesn't seem to be anyone around I think we're alone now (alone now) The beating of our hearts is the only sound I think we're alone now (alone now) There doesn't seem to be anyone around I think we're alone now (alone now) The beating of our hearts is the only sound Running just as fast as we can Holding on to one another's hand Trying to get away into the night And then you put your arms around me And we tumble to the ground and then you say I think we're alone now There doesn't seem to be anyone around I think we're alone now The beating of our hearts is the only sound I think we're alone now There doesn't seem to be anyone around I think we're alone now The beating of our hearts is the only sound I think we're alone now (alone now) There doesn't seem to be anyone around I think we're alone now (alone now) The beating of our hearts is the only sound I think we're alone now (alone now) There doesn't seem to be anyone around I think we're alone now (alone now) The beating of our hearts is the only sound
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aug 29, 1987 | 84 | 42 |
| 2 | Sep 5, 1987 | 63 | 63 |
| 3 | Sep 12, 1987 | 50 | 76 |
| 4 | Sep 19, 1987 | 41 | 85 |
| 5 | Sep 26, 1987 | 28 | 98 |
| 6 | Oct 3, 1987 | 21 | 105 |
| 7 | Oct 10, 1987 | 15 | 111 |
| 8 | Oct 17, 1987 | 11 | 115 |
| 9 | Oct 24, 1987 | 5 | 121 |
| 10 | Oct 31, 1987 | 3 | 123 |
| 11 | Nov 7, 1987 | 1 | 125 |
| 12 | Nov 14, 1987 | 1 | 125 |
| 13 | Nov 21, 1987 | 4 | 122 |
| 14 | Nov 28, 1987 | 7 | 119 |
| 15 | Dec 5, 1987 | 16 | 110 |
| 16 | Dec 12, 1987 | 23 | 103 |
| 17 | Dec 19, 1987 | 33 | 93 |
| 18 | Dec 26, 1987 | 43 | 83 |
| 19 | Jan 2, 1988 | 43 | 83 |
| 20 | Jan 9, 1988 | 46 | 80 |