In 1979, Maxine Nightingale wasn’t sold on the song that would be the follow up to her massive international disco hit, “Right Back Where We Started From” and was against releasing “Lead Me On” as a single at all.
Nightingale had scored a massive No. 2 hit with “Right Back Where We Started From” three years earlier, but her follow-up efforts quickly stalled out. She nearly passed on “Lead Me On” out of fear it would flop since it was such a departure from her first hit. She was wrong.
“Lead Me On” hit the top spot on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart three separate times in 1979. In total, the song spent seven weeks at the top and climbed to No. 5 on the Hot 100.
Its legacy has only grown. On Billboard‘s ranking of its Top 100 Adult Contemporary Songs of All Time, “Lead Me On” landed at No. 2, outranked by Savage Garden’s “Truly Madly Deeply.”
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“Lead Me On” was written by Allee Willis and David Lasley. Willis discussed the song’s creation with Songfacts. “I really was in one of those relationships. It wasn’t a bad relationship, but it was one that obviously wasn’t gonna work.”
She continued, “It was someone that couldn’t commit. And I really was a wreck. But I had just started having hits, so at least I was a wreck in a very exciting time in my life.”
“David Lasley was one of the first people I ever collaborated with, and there was a song out at that time that the Bee Gees had written and produced. It was by an artist named Samantha Sang, ‘Emotion.’ So we wanted to write a song that was in kind of that tempo that had that feel, and I don’t remember if it was David or me that just said, ‘Lead me on. You know, tease me all night long. I don’t care, I want to be in this relationship, I’m staying here.’ It was a very mentally unhealthy state to be in.”
Nightingale recorded it for her album Love Lines. Willis sang backup on the track.
Willis would go on to co-write Earth, Wind & Fire‘s “September” and “Boogie Wonderland,” the Pointer Sisters‘ “Neutron Dance,” and the Friends theme song “I’ll Be There for You.” Additionally, Willis said of “Lead Me On,” “That song was written very, very fast. That and ‘Neutron Dance’ were both written in under an hour.”
“Lead Me On” became a generational classic almost by accident. From a painful breakup song its artist almost passed on to an unbeatable No. 2 spot on Billboard’s all-time rankings, it remains Maxine Nightingale’s ultimate masterpiece.
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