“The Power of Love” Single by Huey Lewis and the News from the album Back to the Future: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack
B-side “Bad Is Bad”
Released June 17, 1985
Label Chrysalis
Songwriters Huey Lewis, Chris Hayes, Johnny Colla
Producer Huey Lewis and the News
Charted No.1 in US, No.9 in UK, No.1 in Canada, No.38 in France, No.11 in Italy
The music video, filmed in June 1985, shows the band playing in a nightclub (Uncle Charlie’s, a frequent stop for the band in their early career) with Emmett “Doc” Brown (Christopher Lloyd) showing up in his DeLorean “Time Machine”, apparently after time-traveling, and a couple stealing it for a joy ride. Lewis said filming took the entire day and night to complete, with the band finishing up at 3:00 AM. The video is included as a bonus feature in several home video releases of Back to the Future.
The song appears early in Back to the Future as Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) skateboards to school. Later in the film, McFly and his band play a hard rock version of the song for a Battle of the Bands audition, at which a judge played by Huey Lewis tells Marty’s group that they are “just too darn loud,” and later when Marty returns to his neighborhood.
The film’s director, Robert Zemeckis, wanted Lewis to do the song – Huey Lewis & the News were rising stars with a modern sound that worked well in the movie, which takes place in both 1955 and 1985. Lewis had never done film work and hesitated at first, since he didn’t want to write a song called “Back To The Future.” When Zemeckis told him that the song didn’t have to be about the movie, Lewis accepted the challenge.
The song has a universal message that works very well outside of the film. Lewis was newly married and had two young children when he wrote it with his bandmates Johnny Colla and Chris Hayes. His family provided inspiration for the lyrics.
