This week, Advertising sign publishes a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Us Week 2004 continues here with the story behind Bowling for Soup's “1985,” a wistfully nostalgic '40s hit that has taken on a different meaning for its creators now that it's been longer since its release than it has been since mid-decade 80's at the time.
Like many songs, “1985” began with nothing more than a wordless hook. It was first introduced to former SR-71 frontman Mitch Allan while he was driving, after which he temporarily added a filler to begin with: “It's a, it's a, it's a roller coaster.”
His decision to later swap it for “19, 19, 1985” was just as fortuitous. The reason it stuck? “Honestly, she sang fantastically,” he recalls Advertising sign over 20 years later.
Later, people would agree. Bowling for Soup had a nostalgic earworm hit of No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 10 on the Pop Airplay chart, promoting the band's record A hangover you don't deserve at No. 37 on the Billboard 200. In the two decades since, the track has amassed more than 372.7 million official US on-demand streams, according to Luminate, and people who weren't even alive in the year of the title continue to you sing along with joy when he comes on the radio or plays at a party, as he still often does.
But before it became a legacy-defining success for BFS, Allan was buried its original version on SR-71's latest album Here we go again, which was only released in Japan (until 2010, when it finally became available in the US). He had put the rest of the piece together on a trip to Machu Picchu, asking his fellow hikers to shout out their favorite '80s references – “Springsteen!” “Madonna!” — and weave them into an admittedly cynical take on a Prozac-addicted suburban housewife named Debbie, with some help from his drummer, John Allen.
If not for producer Butch Walker, “1985” would never have been widely heard in the US, much less become an enduring smash for generations. But Walker had worked with Allan and SR-71 before, and at the suggestion of his manager, Jonathan Daniel, decided the track deserved a second life – something the guys at Bowling for Soup, fresh from the first them a Grammy nomination. 2003's pop-punk radio hit 'Girl All the Bad Guys Want' could provide that.
“The song was good, but it wasn't great yet,” Walker recalls. “It's all about who's presenting it. I think we realized that maybe his presentation was wrong in the first place.”
First things first. Led by frontman Jaret Reddick and bandmates Chris Burney, Gary Wiseman and Rob Felicetti, Bowling for Soup had made a name for themselves by not taking themselves too seriously, specializing in creating Mimic songs before memes were even a thing. This meant that some of the more sardonic lines about condom-breaking and George Michael's sexuality had to be left out.
“That's the difference between the humor on the SR-71 and us,” says Reddick. “Their songs had this edge to their comedy – it's more satanic. Our stuff is just funny.”
He and Walker sat in a room together and dissected “1985” line by line, hearing lyrics about Duran Duran and Ozzy Osbourne to more closely match the personal tastes of Reddick, who was a teenager during the title period. The frontman gave the melody more life and Walker made it so that the song is sunny “hoo-hoo-hooThe hook was the first thing listeners heard when they pressed play.
“It was a collective effort,” Reddick says. “If I had heard the SR-71 song, I'm sure I would have liked it, because I'm a fan of that band. But I don't think it gives me the same perspective at all.”
Allan, now a Los Angeles-based writer-producer who has worked with Bebe Rexha and Demi Lovato, agrees. “[Reddick] he took this sad woman we were making fun of and turned her into the hero of the story,” he marvels. “He's suddenly celebrating that he got to live in 1985 and that we, the listeners, didn't. Life was much better then, and he had to live it.
“[The original] The version in my mind has been superseded by Bowling for Soup's,” he concludes.
It was released as the first single off Headache“1985” made BFS a staple of the early 2000s pop-punk movement. The band featured the likes of Robert Palmer, Run-DMC and Limp Bizkit in the track's music video (which Reddick says is particularly proud), with a Tawny Kitaen as well as a cameo from Alan.
They embarked on a tour, and then another and another, finding that their fans around the world never tired of mocking Debbie night after night – because, let's face it: “The song is kind of bad,” admits Reddick. “We made it nicer, for sure. But there's still a bit of hopelessness in it.”
The kids didn't get tired of playing it either. “The fact that it's something that our band does that makes people happy — that's the thing that never gets old,” Reddick continues. “From the first two chords, they know what it is. Every phone is featured during this song. People still laugh at 'When did Mötley Crüe become classic rock?'”
But something strange happened right around the time that Bowling for Soup's version of the song was released – Reddick became a parent. So does Alan. Their first-born children are now 21 and 20, respectively, almost the exact number of years between 1985 and 2004 as 2004 and 2024. As time went on, a song about nostalgia became nostalgic in its own right, and its creators realized that they began to identify more with Debbie than with her two proverbial high school kids. In 2021, Bowling for Soup released a track titled “Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody's Doing It).”
“I started seeing it very quickly,” recalls Reddick, now a father of three. “I didn't like that this was actually happening in my life. When they're really young, they still think all your jokes are funny. Then they go through this moment where they don't think you're funny, then they think you're funny again but roll their eyes. My kids' teachers tell them, “I heard your dad on the radio today,” and they say, “Okay, cool. Also, he mowed the lawn today, and there are a bunch of dishes to finish.”
Alan says: “I'm the dad – I'm not cool.”
Fortunately for both of them, and all the former cool kids turned Debbies, things have a way of coming back into fashion. Debbie herself – who, as Reddick points out, is probably a grandmother now – would be delighted that precious Springsteen and Madonna are both touring the arena in 2024, while U2 are hot on the heels of a successful residency at Las Vegas. And modern pop stars have been in the midst of a pop-punk revival for the better part of a decade now, replicating the sounds popularized by Bowling for Soup and their peers.
“Everybody's trying to make records sound like [“1985”] now,” Walker says with a laugh. “It's ironic that we're there. I guess I've been living since then… I can't believe we're already back to recycling the emo era and the pop punk era, sound-wise.”
“All my kids went through a pop-punk phase,” adds Alan. “It takes them a minute. They discover bands and then they discover my band. I get texts from my oldest who's at UCSB, she's going to be at a party and a band is playing and she's playing '1985. He's like, 'Oh my god, my dad wrote that!'”
Meanwhile, “1985” has shown impressive longevity. It was certified double platinum in 2019, and Reddick and Allan still enjoy sending each other new musicians' updated covers of the song with references to the early 00s and 2010s – which, ironically, sometimes outlive the 52-year-old now Reddick's head.
“I'm Debbie!” he proclaims, mysterious. “People come up to us like, 'I'm Debbie.' She probably now looks back at her children and they are the Debbies of the world. And he says, “See?”
But as Debbie gets the last laugh in her story, so does he: Reddick recalls a time when his daughter called him from science class in disbelief, asking if he knew how many Spotify listeners his band had. “I was like, 'I don't know, 2 million a month?' He goes, “Dad, that's a lot!” I go “Yeah, I'm trying to tell you that.” (For the record, BFS has nearly 4 million monthly listeners on the platform at press time.)
Reddick, Allan and Walker all live in real time as to why they believe “1985” has had such lasting appeal across multiple generations. Aging and nostalgia are some of the only truly universal human experiences, which means the song, unlike some of the '80s tropes it pokes fun at, will likely never go out of style.
But “1985” also speaks to the power of leaving egos at the door in the service of collaboration. The project would not have been a success without Allan's openness to improving his creation or Bowling for Soup's willingness to stand behind a song they hadn't originally written.
“I'm very happy that this song did so well,” says Reddick. “I'm not sure we wouldn't be where we are today [without it]but I'm certainly thankful that we are.”
“You hope a song is going to chart, let alone top 10, let alone a year or so later,” observes Allan. “It takes a village. But I'm so happy to live in this village, you know?'
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/bowling-for-soup-1985-sr-71-history-1235665052/
