Never Tear Us Apart by INXS

Never Tear Us Apart is a ballad by the Australian band INXS, written by keyboardist Andrew Farriss and singer Michael Hutchence for the 1987 album Kick. Released as the album's fourth single in 1988, it reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 2 in Canada and No. 24 in the UK. It won two ARIA Music Awards in 1989.

Farriss found the chords on an upright piano while INXS was touring the world in 1986. He played the idea for Hutchence, who liked it. Farriss then recorded a demo in a blues style. In that first form the song moved at a faster clip, closer to the rock and roll of Gene Vincent, with a piano part that owed a lot to Fats Domino. Hutchence kept asking Farriss to slow it down. He needed room for the words he was writing. Each pass pulled the tune further toward a ballad.

The band recorded Kick in Sydney and Paris with the English producer Chris Thomas. The album was mixed at AIR Studios in London. Thomas suggested building the arrangement on synthesizers. He took out the demo's piano and put strings in its place. The finished track sways in something close to waltz time. It comes to a full stop twice. After the second stop, Kirk Pengilly comes in with a saxophone solo that carries the song toward its close. On stage the lights dropped for a few seconds during that silence. Then Tim Farriss brought the band back in on guitar. Pengilly would sometimes walk out into the crowd to play the solo.

Hutchence wrote the lyric about Michele Bennett, an Australian film producer he dated from 1982 to 1987. His sister Tina later said Bennett was the only woman he ever thought about marrying. Farriss has described the words as coming from a very personal place for Hutchence at the time he wrote them. Hutchence also spoke about how hard it was to write a love song that still sounded tough. Years later, in a recorded interview used in the 2019 documentary Mystify: Michael Hutchence, he said the song was for Michele and that she knew it, even though they had split by then.

Bennett also played a part in the song's video. She had introduced Hutchence to the director Richard Lowenstein. Lowenstein shot the clip in Prague, a city he felt had barely been seen on film. The video uses long tracking shots, adds an extended intro and keeps the camera on Hutchence for most of its running time. That focus on Hutchence caused some friction with the rest of the band. Lowenstein filmed the videos for Guns in the Sky and New Sensation on the same trip. The Never Tear Us Apart clip took the ARIA award for Best Video. The song also helped INXS win Best Group that night. It was nominated for Single of the Year and Song of the Year as well.

The single came out in the UK in June 1988 and in Australia that August. Beyond its US and Canadian success, it reached the top 10 in the Netherlands and Belgium and No. 5 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. In Australia it peaked at No. 14 on first release. It has since been certified seven times platinum there.

Hutchence died in November 1997 at the age of 37. Bennett was the last person he phoned before he died. At his funeral at St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney, the song played as the other members of INXS and his brother Rhett carried his coffin out of the church.

A 2014 television miniseries about the band was titled INXS: Never Tear Us Apart. After it aired, the single climbed back into the Australian chart and reached No. 11, higher than its original peak. The Newcastle Jets soccer club made it a club anthem in 2008. Port Adelaide fans in the AFL took it up in 2014, holding their scarves overhead when it plays at games. Rolling Stone placed it at No. 282 on its 2021 list of the 500 greatest songs. In July 2025, Triple J listeners voted it the best Australian song of all time.

Other artists have recorded it many times. Tom Jones cut a version with Natalie Imbruglia for his 1999 duets album Reload. In 2001 the DJ Tall Paul reworked it as Precious Heart. That version reached No. 14 in the UK. INXS re-recorded it in 2010 for the album Original Sin, with Ben Harper and the French singer Mylène Farmer. Farmer added lyrics in French. Paloma Faith recorded it in 2012 for a John Lewis television ad. Her version reached No. 16 in the UK. The Teskey Brothers released a cover in 2021 as a tribute to the late promoter Michael Gudinski. Farriss has said the number of covers around the world is hard to take in.

Film and television keep coming back to the original too. It was almost used in Donnie Darko before the producers chose a different song. It was added to the director's cut in 2004. It has since turned up in One Tree Hill, This Is Where I Leave You, Jack Ryan and a 2022 episode of Euphoria. In that episode, Eric Dane's character dances to it in a flashback. Farriss has said people still ask to use it all the time, for shows, ads, and family events such as weddings, births and funerals. Its key, tempo and other details are on the Never Tear Us Apart key and BPM page.