Song trivia: Don’t You Forget About Me
I recently emailed a group of various friends and asked them to send me a song from a movie soundtrack. I was surpised that no one sent me this song.
It’s only one of the most recognizable pop songs connected to a movie. It was Simple Mind’s biggest hit in the U.S. In fact I bet a lot of people would be hard-pressed to name any other songs they did. I wouldn’t be surprised if the band hates it, though. They didn’t write it.
It was written by Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff.
You’ve probably never heard of either of them–but Forsey has collaborated with a lot of folks, including co-writing “Flashdance…What A Feeling” (another soundtrack song no one sent me–I was so disappointed), producing albums by Billy Idol and the Psychedelic Furs, and he got his start playing drums for Georgio Moroder.
Steve Schiff is another story. He was the guitarist and songwriter in Nina Hagen’s band. If you don’t know who Nina Hagen is, you’re not alone. But you’re missing out. She was an opera singer from East Germany who was so weird, they kicked her out of the country. OK, I made that up. But she was a child prodigy opera singer in East Germany. The rest of the story you can read here. And she IS weird.
If you’re ever bored, try watching some interviews with her on youtube. She’s a trip.
“Don’t You Forget About Me” was initially offered to the singer from the Fixx, Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol before Simple Minds were given a chance at it. They initially passed on it too. Did you know that the version of it everyone knows is an edited version? The uncut version is over 6 minutes long and was only released as a 12″.
Here it is–more lyrics than the radio version:
And in case you’re one of those people who can only recall this song by Simple Minds, check these out. (I know you guys will know most of these.)
Promised You A Miracle
Someone, Somewhere In Summertime
Waterfront
Up On The Catwalk
Theme For Great Cities (really early-1981)
Seeing Out The Angel (really early-1981)
Posted on August 18, 2010, in Music. Bookmark the permalink. 24 Comments.
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The other Simple Minds song I think of off the top of my head is “Alive and Kicking.” Oh, and “Sanctify Yourself.”
I think Billy Idol would have been a pretty good fit for that song. (The sanitized pop-star Billy Idol, of course. Not the Generation X punkster.)
The mid 80s were a golden age for movie soundtracks. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Flashdance was one of the first movies where the soundtrack became a hit album on its own. After that, it seemed like every movie tried to do the same thing, and Cameron Crowe has tried to follow that model with every movie he made. when I think of great movie soundtracks, I usually think of him: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Singles, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous.
Of course, John Hughes had a similar pattern with the music in his movies at about the same time.
It was John Hughes that I loved for using all the music I listened to and everyone else hated in the 80s. I’ll never forget sitting in a movie theater and hearing a Smiths song in a movie–being covered by New Order! Nowadays everyone thinks of the Smiths and New Order as being so 80s, but in the 80s, that kind of music was *not* popular. Paula Abduhl and Rick Astley were popular in the 80s.
The 70s had some hit soundtrack records–Saturday Night Fever, Grease. Fame may have been earlier than Flashdance too but I don’t know.
Susan, it depends on where you were in the 80s. As a college student in the 80s, I can tell you that Paula Abdul and Rick Astley were the object of much derision, although they dominated MTV.
The Smiths, Depeche Mode, New Order, The Pet Shop Boys, General Public, were very hot in my crowd, but the college scene embraced the new wave far earlier than the masses. Much props to KJQ in SLC.
You’re right about Saturday Night Live. Grease was in a different category because it was a broadway musical, where the characters in the movie actually sing the songs. Those soundtracks have always done well. Fame was before Flashdance. I forgot about Fame, it was quite a phenomenon in the late 70s/early 80s.
You’re older than me? I thought you were younger. I was a high school student in the 80s. College students don’t count.
Really what I mean was radio airplay. In the 80s there was college radio, which was way different from other radio. “Real” radio was basically limited to Top 40 and classic rock/AOR.
Actually, there was a new wave radio station in Seattle in the 80s I used to listen to all the time–KYYX, the Wave. But they went under, even after they started playing stuff like Van Halen. After that we were limited to KCMU (the UW’s radio station, now known as KEXP) and KJET, an AM station.
Yeah, KJQ went under too, but it was there for us through most of the 80s and we still remember.
If you lived in the Bay Area, there was Live 105 which billed itself as “Modern Rock” and which basically was the Top 40 (or 100) of college radio plus new wave, punk and reggae “standards.”
I’ve traveled to the Bay Area enough on business the last couple of years to know that Live 105 is still there, along with K-Fog. They still play some decent indie rock, along with a mercilessly heavy rotation of Chili Peppers and ’90s grunge.
I agree with Susan, as I think I’ve written here before. People have a massively revisionist memory of what kind of music was popular in the ’80s. In terms of radio play and record sales, bands like The Smiths, The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, etc. were not even blips on the radar, and knowing these bands didn’t really make you one of the cool kids (believe me, I know).
I’d like to go on record as saying that the soundtrack to Pretty in Pink was John Hughes’ greatest achievement.
Susan, if I were on your list, I’d send this song:
An awesome song created for a soundtrack, but not actually included on the OST. Smithereens – Girl Like You (for Say Anything) I heard Crowe thought it gave away the movie.
For actually included on a soundtrack, I’d have to go with:
Chagall Guevara – Tale of the Twister on the Pump Up the Volume soundtrack.
I love the Smithereens. When I was dating my husband he had both of their albums on cassette–one on each side–and we’d listen to it over and over in the car. I never got sick of them. I even have a Smithereens vinyl picturedisc…haha.
“In terms of radio play and record sales, bands like The Smiths, The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, etc. were not even blips on the radar, and knowing these bands didn’t really make you one of the cool kids (believe me, I know).”
No question on the record sales, but there were definitely groups who thought they were cool because they started listening to “new wave” or “modern” music early in the 80s. There was a group in my high school that started dressing in 80s clothes and listening to Devo (New Traditionalists) The B-52s and other progressive bands in about 1981.
“I’d like to go on record as saying that the soundtrack to Pretty in Pink was John Hughes’ greatest achievement.”
I still listen to it. My favorite is “Let Me Get What I Want.”
People have a massively revisionist memory of what kind of music was popular in the ’80s. In terms of radio play and record sales, bands like The Smiths, The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, etc. were not even blips on the radar, and knowing these bands didn’t really make you one of the cool kids (believe me, I know).
This is sooo true. In fact it could get you beat up.
Sid and Nancy also had a pretty awsome soundtrack. I still sing along with Joe Strummer on “Love Kills.”
So weird. I was just telling my daughter about how I used a book about Sid & Nancy for a reading assignment in my high school psychology class. (And I Don’t Want to Live This Life)
Live 105 generally follows the trends in alternative/underground/indie rock, which means it was awesome during the ’80s, very cool during the early and mid ’90s, abysmal during the late ’90s and early ’00s and fairly okay after about 2004 or 2005. Oh, and both Nina Hagen’s New York, New York and Simple Minds Don’t You (Forget About Me) were Live 105 staples during the ’80s.
There were decent-sized modern rock/college radio followings in the Bay Area suburbs so none of us got beat up. Of course, we were timid suburban kids and avoided the rough and tumble of the Berkeley punk or San Jose noise/thrash scenes, who I bet mixed it up with the frat boys from Cal or Stanford at times.
I was all excited about The Current when I moved to the Twin Cities three years ago, but after about a year they changed up their programming and now there’s too much of the wimpy stuff (folk, beard rock, alt country), which I’m not a fan of. Plus the station’s signal isn’t strong enough for me to listen with my MP3 player on my commute so I don’t tune in often. On the other hand, you do get a fairly decent dose of Prince, the Replacements, Husker Du and the Suburbs (and for some reason New Order) so that’s cool and it makes it the first station I check in with when I’m driving the car.
Ahhhh, KJQ. How you are missed.
Susan – I just watched a recent concert with Simple Minds and they sang it. I think they said they don’t love it, but they love their fans.
Alive and Kicking is definitely my favorite by them.
That’s cool. In the 80s I had a live concert they did on VHS, taped off of MTV, and I used to watch it over and over. And here it is…don’t you love the Internet.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13gJa5_OYd4&fs=1&hl=en_US
Man. I just DO NOT hate that song in any way.
Ah, Nina Hagen. I loved her in her heyday. Here she is on Merv Griffin along with Don Rickles:
I was lead to believe from my high school beginning German book that Nina Hagen was hugely popular with the kids in Germany. I guess that was pre-Hasslehoff.
On Wikipedia it says that she was very popular in East Germany and her father traveled out of the country for something work-related, and when he tried to return, they wouldn’t let him back in. So she threatened to make a stink if they didn’t let her and her mother leave to join him, and they let them go.
Thanks for that link Norbert. I saw her live in the 80s, back when she was doing the whole UFO thing, it was awesome.
I was in college in the early 80s. My favorites from that time are a bit skewed – I wasn’t a fan of most of the songs people today associate with the 80s. The FM station I listened to was WHFS in DC, which, to my knowledge, NEVER played a top 40 song, and when a band went from semi-obsure/cult fave to million-sellers (Talking Heads before “Speaking in Tongues,” Prince before “Purple Rain,” Fine Young Cannibals before “She Drives Me Crazy,” etc.), ‘HFS often dropped them from their playlist.
So I was treated to the likes of Lene Lovich, Rubber Rodeo, Jon (not Rick) Astley, Wall of Voodoo, Concrete Blonde, Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson, Malcolm McLaren, Fishbone, Toya Wilcox, Captain Sensible, Everything But the Girl, and Freur. Songs by these artists rarely (if ever) cracked the Top 40, and didn’t make the soundtracks of movies very often…
Nice to see the shout-outs to Nina Hagen, who I also heard frequently on WHFS in those days. I still listen to her single “Universal Radio” a couple times a year, when I’m feeling in the mood for some oddball pop.
Laurie Anderson! Always wanted to see her live. Never did. She was a trip.
Oh, wow. Freur’s Doot Doot. I haven’t heard that in ages.
Jon Astley. It has a memory attached to it, but I can’t dig it up. Jane’s Getting Serious…man. My subconscious is trying hard to come up with it!