Mega Rock On Demand
Mega Rock On Demand!
Mega Rock On Demand
Rewind & Rock with Sharon Stewart: The Song They Almost Passed On
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On this day in rock history… Simple Minds hit number one with a song they almost didn’t record.
A movie, a placeholder melody, and one unforgettable final fist pump turned it into an ’80s anthem.
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Rewind and Rock, Sharon Stewart, Simple Minds, Dont You Forget About Me, The Breakfast Club, Jim Kerr, Judd Nelson, Bryan Ferry, Billy Idol, 1985, Mega Rock
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Robert Plant with Heaven Knows on Mega Rock. Alright, let's rewind and rock. Going back to the year 1985, May 18th, when Simple Minds hit number one in America with Don't You Forget About Me. And the funny thing is, they almost passed on the song. Alright, the song wasn't written by Simple Minds. It was written by Keith Forcy and Steve Schiff. They wrote it specifically for the film The Breakfast Club. And then they tried to find the right artist to perform it. Brian Ferry of Roxy Music, and he's also a great uh solo artist, he passed on it. Billy Idol passed on the song. Simple Minds passed at first, too. Yeah, because they they wrote their own songs, and Jim Kerr wasn't sure the lyrics made any sense. But they ended up doing it. Even the famous uh the you know, the la la la la part, that was really just a placehold. That's basically where, you know, whenever you hear a la la la la in a song, that means they don't have the words, they don't know what to say, but that stuck. And uh once the song landed in the Breakfast Club, everything clicked. Now the move movie came out in uh 1985, and it became one of the defining teen films of the decade. I went to the theater to see it. Five high school students spent a Saturday in detention. The brain, there was the athlete, the basket case, the princess, and the criminal. Judd Nelson. Yeah, that final fist pump from Judd Nelson with Don't You Forget About Me playing. That turned the song into a full-blown 1980s anthem. And uh yeah, May 18th, the song went to number one, became Simple Minds' first American chart hit, and Jim Kerr later admitted it fit beautiful beautifully. And you know, he was right from 1985. Simple Minds on Rewind and Rock. Don't you forget about me. Yeah, don't forget the fist pump at the end on Mega Rock.
