How many of these ’80s hits do you remember?
Five songs from the early to mid-’80s, and a bonus question about who directed what.
No lyrics in the clues, just stories from before the songs were hits. Make a guess, then read on.
Question 1
Guess it: a pencil-sketch video, six months of work, and a first single that went nowhere.
Answer 1
a-ha, “Take On Me.” It came out twice and failed to chart in the UK both times. Then director Steve Barron and two animators drew over live footage for six months, and the song finally took off. By 2020, that video had passed one billion views.
Question 2
Which song ended up in Rocky III in place of a Queen hit?
Answer 2
“Eye of the Tiger,” by Survivor. Songwriter Jim Peterik found a message from Sylvester Stallone on his answering machine. “At first, I thought it was a joke,” he said. Stallone sent a VHS tape of the movie’s first ten minutes, with Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” still playing.
Peterik wrote the intro in his car. The first version took two days. Stallone’s script supplied the title, and he used the demo in the film, not the finished hit. Queen’s Brian May later went to a Survivor concert and confirmed the Queen song really was in the copy they received.
Question 3
True or false: Simple Minds wrote: “Don’t You (Forget About Me).”
Answer 3
False. Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff wrote it for The Breakfast Club, and the band didn’t want it. “We turned him down six times,” singer Jim Kerr said. They gave in, cut it in an afternoon, and watched it go to number one.
The “la-la-la” ending? A placeholder. Neither writer could come up with words.
Question 4
You’ve sung along to this one. It started when a drum machine wouldn’t switch off. Name it.
Answer 4
“Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” Eurythmics, 1983.
Dave Stewart programmed a drum machine and couldn’t make it stop. The noise woke Annie Lennox in the next room, and she walked in and played a riff over it. They were recording in an attic above a picture framing shop, after five flop singles. A Cleveland DJ kept playing it until the label gave in. Milk bottles made the album, too.
Question 5
The lyricist behind this number-one hit had never been to the place in the title. For scenery, he leaned on a ______ article. Name the song and the magazine.
Answer 5
“Africa,” by Toto, and the magazine was National Geographic. David Paich wrote the lyrics, and he told NPR he’d always wanted to go. The song hit number one on February 5, 1983. Decades later, a Twitter bot called Africa by Toto Bot was tweeting its lyrics every three hours.
Question 6
One director shot the videos for two songs in this quiz and for a Michael Jackson hit. Who?
Answer 6
Steve Barron: “Take On Me,” “Africa,” and “Billie Jean.” One retrospective adds “Summer of ’69” to his list, too.
Final score
One point per song, one for the director, and one extra if you already knew Simple Minds didn’t write theirs.
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