4 No. 1 Hits From 1985 Forever Connected to the Movies in Which They Appeared

Was there ever a better time to release a song from a movie soundtrack than the 80s? Many of the most beloved songs of the decade came attached to major motion pictures. 1985 proved to be the ultimate year for the movie song.

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In total, seven songs that topped the charts in 1985 went all the way to No. 1. We chose four of them that seem especially connected to the movies in which they appeared.

“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds

John Hughes understood that if you were going to make movies about teenagers, you had to include music to which the teenagers in the audience could relate. That meant no stodgy power ballads and, for the most part, only up-and-coming acts. “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” stands out among the Hughes soundtrack classics because it was written by Steve Schiff and Keith Forsey for The Breakfast Club before an artist was lined up. Simple Minds had to be coaxed into performing something that wasn’t really their own. But once they relented, singer Jim Kerr added the iconic “la, la, la” vocals that helped define the song. Listen to it today and you can still imagine those five kids finding themselves in detention.

“Crazy For You” by Madonna

With the benefit of history, we now know that Madonna is pretty masterful at ballads. But when the producers of the film Vision Quest chose her to sing the pre-written slow song “Crazy For You” for the film, she was an unknown quantity in that department. Her previous hits to that point had been mostly uptempo, danceable stuff. Written by John Bettis and Jon Lind, “Crazy For You” requires a great deal of vulnerability from whoever sings it. Madonna provided that and then some. She even shows up in the movie singing the song in a bar, her undeniable screen presence flashing even in that brief appearance.

“St. Elmo’s Fire (Man In Motion)” by John Parr

There’s no rule that says a movie song has to be directly inspired by a movie. When John Parr was given the script to the film St. Elmo’s Fire, he found he couldn’t relate to the romantic problems of the characters. Having written an inspirational musical bed with David Foster, he turned elsewhere for lyrical inspiration. Parr heard the story of the “Man In Motion” Rick Hansen, who was raising money for folks with injuries similar to his by traveling the country in a wheelchair. By throwing in the title of the film in the refrain, Parr got away with his clever bit of misdirection. And he ended up with a No. 1 song because of it.

“The Power Of Love” by Huey Lewis & The News

It’s impossible to imagine Back To The Future without those chunky synthesizer chords from “The Power Of Love”, can you? Nobody was hotter in the business of songs than Huey Lewis & The News in 1985, as they were coming off the success of their hits-spewing Sports album. Lewis initially balked at recording a song for the movie, mainly because he didn’t know how he could possibly make a song called “Back To The Future” work. Producers assured him he could do whatever he wanted with the song, including choosing a different title. He and co-writers Chris Hayes and Johnny Colla responded by delivering a killer anthem that works wonderfully both in and out of the context of the film.

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