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Rewind & Rock with Sharon Stewart: The Song They Almost Passed On · Mega Rock On Demand

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Robert Plant with Heaven Knows on Mega Rock.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, let's rewind and rock.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to the year 1985, May 18th, when Simple Minds hit number one in America with Don't You Forget About Me.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the funny thing is, they almost passed on the song.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, the song wasn't written by Simple Minds.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was written by Keith Forcy and Steve Schiff.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: They wrote it specifically for the film The Breakfast Club.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then they tried to find the right artist to perform it.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Brian Ferry of Roxy Music, and he's also a great uh solo artist, he passed on it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Billy Idol passed on the song.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Simple Minds passed at first, too.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because they they wrote their own songs, and Jim Kerr wasn't sure the lyrics made any sense.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: But they ended up doing it.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Even the famous uh the you know, the la la la la part, that was really just a placehold.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh once the song landed in the Breakfast Club, everything clicked.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now the move movie came out in uh 1985, and it became one of the defining teen films of the decade.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I went to the theater to see it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Five high school students spent a Saturday in detention.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: The brain, there was the athlete, the basket case, the princess, and the criminal.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Judd Nelson.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that final fist pump from Judd Nelson with Don't You Forget About Me playing.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: That turned the song into a full-blown 1980s anthem.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, he was right from 1985.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Simple Minds on Rewind and Rock.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you forget about me.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, don't forget the fist pump at the end on Mega Rock.