Songfacts®:

• INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence wrote the lyrics, which describe an instant connection between two people who form a bond that will last forever. Hutchence had many passionate relationships in his lifetime, many with celebrities like Kylie Minogue and Helena Christensen, but he was never married. He did have a daughter in 1996 with Paula Yates.
• Michael Hutchence died in 1997 at 37. At his funeral service, his coffin was carried out of St. Andrews Cathedral by the remaining members of INXS and his younger brother Rhett as "Never Tear Us Apart" played in the background.
• Andrew Farriss, who played a variety of instruments in INXS, wrote the music for this song. As part of a tribute to Michael Hutchence to mark what would have been his 50th birthday, Farriss told the story of the song: "In 1986 I sat down on an upright piano and started working on the chords that would eventually become 'Never Tear Us Apart.' I thought it had potential and asked Michael what he thought of it. He told me he really liked it so I recorded a blues style demo for him. I gave the demo to Michael and the eventual lyric that he wrote was truly inspired. Straight from the heart. I know how much that lyric meant to him. It was a personal love lyric very much in the moment for him."
  
  He added in a 2020 Songfacts interview: "What an amazing lyric. That song has been covered around the world by so many artists it's mind-boggling. It still gets requested all the time for use with reality TV shows and product placement. You name it - deaths, births, marriages - it's just one of those lyrics."
• When Andrew Farriss wrote the track, it was uptempo, in the vein of Gene Vincent. Hutchence had him keep slowing it down to accommodate his lyric until the song became a ballad with a prominent string section.
• Hutchence was quite proud of this song because he avoided many of the tropes of rock ballads. "It's hard to write ballads dealing with love and keep them tough, and stop people from waving their hands in the air all the time and lighting their Bics up," he said in the BBC book series Classic Albums.
• Like the "New Sensation" video, "Never Tear Us Apart" was shot in Prague, but unlike their previous videos, it eschewed special effects in favor of long tracking shots. It was directed by fellow Aussie Richard Lowenstein.
  
  The video adds about 40 seconds to the intro, allowing for a long establishing shot before Hutchence appears.
• There are two stops in this song, first at :48, then again at 1:49. When INXS played it live, the second stop could go on for quite a while. Typically, the lights would go down and maybe six seconds would go by before they started up again; during this lull the crowd would work into a frenzy. When they resumed was up to guitarist Tim Farriss, who would start it back up by playing his guitar lick. Soon after the restart, Kirk Pengilly's sax solo comes in - he would sometimes venture into the audience to play it.
• By the time "Never Tear Us Apart" was released as the fourth single from the group's sixth album, Kick, INXS had become international superstars on the level they had previously reached only in their native Australia. When the album was issued in October 1987, their American fanbase was so meager, they started with a tour of colleges. The first single, "Need You Tonight," put an end to that when it went to #1. Unfortunately, Michael Hutchence had a hard time managing the undertow of fame and lived just another 10 years.
• In 2006 the song was voted "Nation's Favorite Lyric" by viewers of VH1 Australia.
• This was going to be used in the 2001 movie Donnie Darko, but due to budget constraints, producers used "The Killing Moon" by Echo And The Bunnymen instead, paying a flat fee of £3,000 (this according to Will Sergeant). When a director's cut of the film was released in 2004, "Never Tear Us Apart" was used in the scene.
• Paloma Faith recorded a cover for John Lewis' autumn 2012 advertising campaign. "I have always loved this song and I feel honoured to sing it," Faith said of the track. Her version peaked at #16 on the UK singles chart.
  
  Tunes used by the store chain in previous campaigns include Ellie Goulding's version of Elton John's "Your Song" and Slow Moving Millie's interpretation of The Smiths' "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want."
• This appears in the 2014 movie This Is Where I Leave You, and in episodes of One Tree Hill ("Hundred" - 2008), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit ("Beast's Obsession" - 2014) and Jack Ryan ("Black 22" - 2018).
• In the 2022 Euphoria episode "Ruminations: Big and Little Bullys," there's a flashback scene where the character Cal (Eric Dane) plays this song on a jukebox and dances to it with his best friend Derek before they share a passionate kiss. INXS music plays throughout the series to soundtrack Cal. The songs "Devil Inside," "New Sensation," "Need You Tonight," and "Mystify" also appear. These placements introduced a younger audience to the music of INXS, which enjoyed a boost on streaming services.
  
  There's another scene in the series where the older Cal returns to the same bar and plays the Sinéad O'Connor song "Drink Before The War" as he goes through a mental health crisis. A connection: O'Connor and INXS toured together in 1987.
• Lowenstein had to do some creative bargaining to get the band to go behind the Iron Curtain and shoot in Prague. He recalled the group reaching out to him in search of a quick video after "Need You Tonight" blew up. The director had attended a film festival in Prague and was captivated by the Old World vibe of the Czech Republic's capital city, so he insisted they film the clip there.
  
  "I said we have to go to Prague, because no one's seen it on film. I think Yentl was the only film to be made there at that point," Lowenstein told the Australian news site News.com.au. "We could do long, slow, incredible shots. I blackmailed them, I said the only way I'll do it is if we do it in Prague. To make it worth their while we did 'New Sensation' there as well. I threw in 'Guns In The Sky' as a favor."
• Lowenstein's focus on Hutchence caused some strife with the rest of the band, who wanted more screen time in the videos. "Nothing against the band, but Michael was the lead singer, when you do that magic take with him and his eyes were sparkling he'd make the music video sing. So you'd cut to Michael a lot," he told News.com.au. "I was trying to make the best video, I wasn't thinking of band politics. But that came in. It's understandable. They felt Michael's on screen charisma could overpower the sense of the band being a band. It would turn into the Michael solo act. It was always a balance."
  
  Lowenstein did his best to appease them by incorporating shots of them playing their instruments, but his camera continued to be drawn to their charismatic leader.
  
  "Band members had their idiosyncrasies, so if there was a sax solo I had no problem cutting to Kirk doing his sax solo," he continued. "But as a filmmaker you always want to put the most filmic things in. Some of those images were timeless. Michael knew how to work the camera. He knew how to look through the camera lens without being self-conscious."
• "Never Tear Us Apart" was crowned #1 in Triple J's Hottest 100 of Australian Songs, a landmark poll revealed on July 26, 2025. This special edition of the Hottest 100 was a countdown dedicated entirely to Australian music, created to mark Triple J's 50th anniversary. Following INXS in second place was Hilltop Hoods' 2003 anthem "The Nosebleed Section," while The Veronicas took third with their 2007 pop hit "Untouched."