One Of Steven Spielberg's First Sci-Fi Hits Inspired A Top 10 Hit Soft Rock Song

Steven Spielberg's classic sci-fi fantasy "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (which was banned in Scandinavia), has served as inspiration for many movies and TV shows that came after, from "Stand by Me" to "The Iron Giant" to "Super 8," and of course, "Stranger Things." It was a major influence on the genre, but fans may not be aware that pop-rock legend Neil Diamond was so moved by the film that he actually based an entire song on it.

According to Rolling Stones Magazine, after attending a screening in New York in 1982 with fellow songwriter Carol Bayer Sager and her then-husband Burt Bacharach, the trio headed straight to Diamond's apartment to write the song, "Heartlight," directly inspired by the movie's plot. Although Diamond's lyrics don't mention any character by name and stay rather vague about the story, it's blatantly obvious to anyone who's seen the film that it's about the relationship between Henry Thomas' Elliott and E.T. Verses like, "I just made a friend, A friend is someone you need, But now that he had to go away, I still feel the words that he might say" and "Turn on your heartlight, In the middle of a young boy's dream, Don't wake me up too soon, Gonna take a ride across the moon" couldn't be more on the nose.

Still, credit where it's due, it's a pretty neat tune that even climbed into the top 10 of Billboard's Top 100 list in 1982, peaking at fifth place. However, Diamonds and his songwriter peers had a literal price to pay for the hit.

As much as Diamond and his collaborators tried to avoid mentioning anything specific in the movie, they still found themselves facing a lawsuit by MCA/Universal Pictures for copyright infringement. Rather than fighting it, however, the musicians opted to settle with the production company to avoid litigation, paying them $ 25,000 (equivalent to about $85,500 today). Given that the song quickly became a success (Diamond even titled the album on which "Heartlight" was later released after the song), Diamond, Sager, and Bacharach had gotten off rather easily from the legal debacle.

Songs based on, referencing, or being loosely inspired by great movies have hardly been a rarity since "Heartlight." Famous examples include Nine Inch Nails' "Only", which is believed to have been based on "Fight Club" (David Fincher even directed its music video), The White Stripes' "The Union Forever," which lifted entire lines from the screenplay for "Citizen Kane" (one of the most beautiful movies ever made, according to CineFix), or Regina Spektor's "Fidelity," which was heavily inspired by Stephen Frears' banger rom-com, "High Fidelity," with John Cusack (the TV version with Zoe Kravitz is among those miniseries that you can finish in one weekend). But unlike Diamond and his friends, these artists never had to pay for their inspiration from a beloved movie.