written by Huey Lewis, Chris Hayes and Johnny Colla

produced by Huey Lewis & The News

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We retro-lovers need your help to get back to the year 1985.

Warning: huge self-indulgent tangent approaching...

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I’m making this page July 5th, 2021, the 71st birthday of the great

Hugh Anthony Cregg III, better known to us all as Huey Lewis.

Happy Birthday, HL!!

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Back in the late ’90s, when I discovered the ’80s’ pop culture and all the things I’d missed in my early years, I wrote a song called “1985,” a “We Didn’t Start The Fire”-esque thing poetically cataloguing all the cool things I could think of that happened in those 365 days... I think, in order to give it a bit more of a... I don’t know, a classy touch, if you will, I stylized the title in Roman numerals: “MCMLXXXV.” It was based on the premise that so many amazing examples of the decade’s pop culture seemed to coincide around that magical year. Certainly not all of it, of course, but 1985 did give us—

· quintessential hit songs like Madonna’s “Into The Groove,” Katrina & The Waves’ “Walking On Sunshine,” Tears For Fears’ “Shout,” etc...

· eye-popping music videos such as a-ha’s “Take On Me,” Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing,” etc...

· unforgettable movies including The Breakfast Club, Goonies, Desperately Seeking Susan, and, well... Back To The Future...

· the births of classic TV series like Golden Girls, Growing Pains, MacGyver and Mr. Belvedere...

· the rise of kid fads like Transformers, Care Bears and Rainbow Brite with new series and feature films...

· a sociopolitical and charity craze starting in Britain the Christmas before, courtesy of Band Aid, spilling over with “We Are The World,” Live Aid, Farm Aid, the Northern Lights’ “Tears Are Not Enough” (all to address famine in Africa), Artists United Against Apartheid (apartheid), “That’s What Friends Are For” (AIDS research), and so on.

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ANYway... tangent over. Getting back to Huey, he was born in New York City, but raised on the west coast in Marin County, California. His first band gig was the Bay Area’s country-rock group Clover in the early ’70s. A few years in, for a more aesthetically pleasing show biz name, Hugh transformed into Huey Louis—with this original spelling—until the late ’70s, when he officially became Huey Lewis. Once he got his own band of five talented musicians together, the six rang in the ’80s as Huey Lewis & The News.

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Their self-titled 1980 debut was a moderate success at best, but made up for with 1982’s Picture This (gold) and ’83’s Sports (7x platinum). Sports sprang off six singles to Picture This’ four, and gave the band their first two #1s: “Heart And Soul” and “I Want A New Drug.” The singles carried the band the entire way through 1984, at which time the lads was tapped to contribute a couple of songs to the upcoming motion picture Back To The Future. The results were “Back In Time,” and, of course, this mega-smash, “The Power Of Love,” by far the band’s biggest hit yet. And so it goes without saying it heavily boosted the soundtrack’s sales just the same. The film, a monumental landmark success which still totally stands the test of time, needed no help on its own, but benefitted nonetheless from the song.

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Huey & The News’ song “Power Of Love” is not to be confused with a late ’84 ballad of the same name, which was originally performed by Jennifer Rush—and then Air Supply (whose version changed the chorus’ lead line to “You’re my lady, and I am your man”), and then most notably and recognizably, Laura Branigan and Céline Dion. As incredibly as Jen Rush’s original version performed commercially, it’s amazing more don’t know her name. It wasn’t her only hit, but it did blow the others out of the water.

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To my ear, “Power Of Love” sounds a bit different from most of Huey & The News’ other hit material, but in a way, that’s what I like about it. Not that I don’t enjoy the band’s surrounding songs. Heck, the album Fore! the year after surpassed Sports in both critical acclaim and singles (though not album sales). There’s just something about “Power Of Love” that really gets me going. The following decades haven’t treated the boys the same, but just when we thought they were gone, The News came back with a winter/spring 2020 record, Weather. Still together, still going at it after forty years. Hey, who said old News was a bad thing?...

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full version

music video

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Huey & The News’ official website