Songfacts®:

• This metal ballad is a very personal one for Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford, as the lyric was influenced by his lover, Brad, who committed suicide about a year after the song was released. They met in Philadelphia at an afterparty for Live Aid, which Judas Priest played on July 13, 1985. Halford had some flings on the road with various men, but Brad was his first lasting affair, and it made him "ecstatically, deliriously happy." This is reflected in the song, as Halford sings about their "wild nights, hot and crazy days" (he was still deep in the closet, but his bandmates knew very well he was gay).
  
  Brad had a severe drug problem that strained their relationship, which began to unravel. On January 19, 1987, he killed himself after seeing Halford that day.
  
  "'Out In The Cold' is not exclusively about Brad, but it definitely has him as a reference," Halford explained in a Songfacts interview. "Generally, I write a lot of these songs without really thinking them through until much later on, and then I go, "Oh... now I know where I was going in that particular lyric.'"
• The vocals on this song were some of the first Rob Halford recorded sober, having recently gone through rehab. He was happy to learn that he could let it rip on the microphone without having a few drinks first.
• On this track, Judas Priest made use of their twin lead guitarists - K. K. Downing and Glenn Tipton - who wrote the song with Halford. Tipton played the intro and the second half of the solo; Downing played the second half of the solo.