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"1985" is a song best known for its performance in 2004 by the pop rock band Bowling for Soup. Featured in their album A Hangover You Don't Deserve, as well as the American popular music compilation Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 17, "1985" was originally written and recorded by the band SR-71, led by Mitch Allan.
According to SR-71's website, Bowling for Soup's Jaret Reddick (a friend of SR-71) heard the song and asked for and received permission to record a cover version. However, according to Bowling for Soup's website, it was Allan that called Reddick to suggest the possible cover. Either way, it was Bowling for Soup's version, with slightly reworked lyrics from the original, that has become familiar to most United States radio listeners and topped the charts.
The song describes a woman, Debbie, who is obsessed with the pop culture of 1985 after her dreams of becoming an actress and celebrity as a twenty-something in the 1980s failed to materialize. (In the SR-71 version, the reason given is "the rubber broke", implying an unplanned pregnancy.) The song deals with themes like growth and maturity, lost dreams and changing pop culture via the passage of time. She has trouble dealing with her life and her teenage children due to her preoccupation with the past. (According to Reddick, the song was originally about 1984, but "1985 rhymes better with "preoccupied". *)
The Bowling for Soup music video parodies famous videos from early MTV era, including Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" video, George Michael's "Faith" video, Whitesnake's "Is This Love" video, and directly parodies Mötley Crüe.
The song has attracted a significant pre-teen audience, even though no one in that group remembers the year 1985. A version with "children-rated" lyrics is played on Radio Disney, where, for example, the line "one Prozac a day" is replaced with "one workout a day." The edited version is produced by Kidz Bop; however, it initially retained the line "Only been with one man; what happened to her plan?" (this has since been changed; now it says "Only loved just one man".)
The song and video are also popular with the generation of people currently in their 30s or early 40s as nostalgia for the pop culture of their youth, although the song makes no effort to imitate the style of the 1980s, with the exception of the line "on the radio", which resembles the timbre of the voice singing the verses in the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star", known for being the first video ever played on MTV in 1981; this may or may not be intentional.
According to Bowling's Reddick, part of the song's cross-generational appeal comes from the fact that many of his band's fans are teenagers, and their parents shared many of the experiences "Debbie" has fixated on.
Parodies
- Matt Hodgson "That One Guy" has released a parody, "1955," based on Back to the Future. The song became a hit on the Dr. Demento Radio Show.
- Johnny Crass has released another parody, "Being a Jedi," based on Star Wars. This version relates the plot of Revenge of the Sith, and compares the prequel trilogy unfavorably to the classic trilogy.
- Bob Ricci has recorded a version called "Beach Boy Soup", which is a mash-up between this song and "Kokomo" by The Beach Boys.
Other Songs
- There is a 1970s song by Paul McCartney called "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five".
- "1985" is also a song on the Manic Street Preachers' 2004 album Lifeblood.
- Another song by the same name still is by Roper on their album Brace Yourself for the Mediocre.
- There is also a song by The French Kicks entitled 1985 on their album One Time Bells.
External links
"1985 (song)"