"Der Kommissar" is a song first recorded by Falco in Austria in 1981, covered a year later by After the Fire, reworked in 1983 and retitled "Deep in the Dark" by Laura Branigan. Originally written by Robert Ponger and Falco, the Falco version reached the top of the charts in many countries.

After the Fire's version featured English lyrics by the band's Andy Piercy. The song peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

"Der Kommissar" ("the commissioner" or police captain) was originally written by producer Robert Ponger for Reinhold Bilgeri. Bilgeri turned it down as he felt the song was too soft, so Falco reworked the song for himself instead.

Falco wanted to release "Helden von heute" as the main side (A-side), but the record company wanted "Der Kommissar" to be released, because they felt it had more potential. The record company decided upon a double A-side release and was vindicated when "Der Kommissar" reached No. 1 in German-speaking countries in January 1982. After this big success, Falco's management decided to release "Der Kommissar" (as an A-side) in other countries as well.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, Falco's hit didn't fare as well, despite topping charts throughout Europe and Scandinavia during spring and summer 1982. In the summer of 1982 the British rock band After the Fire recorded an English version of the song, also called "Der Kommissar", and released it as a single, but the record floundered. Coming off a tour opening for Van Halen, After the Fire was working on material for a new album when in December 1982 the group announced onstage during a concert that they were disbanding. Both the After the Fire and Falco versions were rising on the Canadian charts at the time, but neither had cracked the US pop charts. Around that time, American pop singer Laura Branigan began working on her second album, and recorded a new song written over the melody and arrangement of "Der Kommissar", called "Deep in the Dark", which was prepared for release, when the After the Fire version finally hit the US charts (Hot 100) on February 22, 1983, and started rising. Though the UK band's version barely nicked their home country's Top 50, in 1983 the song ultimately rose to No. 5 in the US, where their music video was an MTV hit.

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