The remarkable story of Huey Lewis And The News' The Power Of Love and the co-writer who saved it

"I didn't think it was gonna work, because there's no real love object in the film," remembered Huey Lewis with Dan Rather for his Big Interview podcast earlier this year. The Power Of Love really doesn't have much to do with the film it was commissioned for in that regard, but somehow as the same time it's everything. 

It cannot be separated from the cinematic thrill of Robert Zemeckis' 1985 film. It's not just an integral part of two scenes, its sound embodies the spirit of Marty McFly. Not by accident; the film's writers Bob Gale and Zemeckis were smart. They wanted Huey and his band first and foremost, not a song to order.

"They asked to take a meeting with us as Amblin entertainment," recalls Huey, and they were joined by producer Steven Speilberg. "We went there and Bob Zemekis said, 'We've just written this move, we haven't shot it yet, and our lead character Marty McFly, his favourite band would be Huey Lewis And The News – so how would you like to write a song for the film?"

At this point the band were riding high already with a US number 1 album and international success thanks to 1983's Sports. They didn't necessarily need to be on a film soundtrack for the promotional advantages. Still, Huey was flattered by the interest, but cautious. Pointing out that he'd never written for a film before and didn't know what it entailed.

"Furthermore, I don't really want to write a song called Back To The Future," Huey remembers telling Zemekis and Gale. But the duo were ahead of him; they didn't care what the song was. It was a commission that was hard to refuse. The next one the band wrote would be the song.

"So the next one was Power Of Love," remembers Huey, and despite his about the subject matter's suitability for the film, he was impressed at how film's release was timed around the song, rather than vice versa.

"They were really smart about it," he told Dan Rather. "Because we released the record, the single, and they waited on the movie for the single to climb the charts. Zemeckis to this day says that was the best marketing send-off anyone ever had, because they had a hit record right to begin with."

Unusually for a song used so prominently in a film, the star actually played it on camera – for real. The 23-year-old Michael J Fox was the first choice to play Marty McFly but the role was given to Eric Stoltz when Fox was unavailable (though the actor wasn't even told about the Back To The Future role at this point) due to his role in series Family Ties. Filming began but when Stoltz didn't work out, Fox was drafted in after all – balancing his TV commitments with filming demands. It proved a masterstroke for the musical side of Back To The Future.

The actor already had experience playing guitar in bands since his early teens and three iconic scenes in the film would require him to put that experience to use. There's the early guitar chord / giant speaker scenario that saw McFly physically thrown across the room from the sheer volume, the infamous Marvin Berry & The Starlighters / Johnny B Goode Enchantment Under The Sea scene, and McFly's audition to play his present-day school dance with his band The Pinheads.

While the Johnny B Goode performance didn't use Fox's guitar playing, the school audition scene did. And the song The Pinheads were playing? The Power Of Love, but not the version that was in the charts when Back To The Future was released. It was all connected to that unusual relationship between the song and the film's release.

“The film Back To The Future set a record for the shortest time ever between principal shooting and when the movie came out,” remembered Huey Lewis in an interview with YouTube channel Top 2000 A Gogo in 2023. “Nine weeks. And the reason that is, is because The Power Of Love was released one week, and every week it was soaring up the charts, and then they put the pressure on Zemeckis. He still tells the story, ‘They’re coming to me, going, We’ve got to get the movie out – the song is killing it!’”

The timeframe was so short, editing was done concurrently with shoots and the first test screening of Back To The Future to an audience was shown just three weeks after filming we completed. The schedule onset reportedly forced the demo version of The Power Of Love to be used in the audition scene, with Fox's actual soloing on an Ibanez Roadster played over it. But despite the two Bobs' initial offering of creative freedom to Huey and the band in their initial meeting about supplying a song for the film, the first run at writing The Power Of Love was met with a cool reception from the film's creative duo.

“I sent the [initial] demo down to them and it started with the verse [hums riff] in a minor key,” added Huey. “. We need something to be up,’ I said, ‘Oh, okay.’ So I went to the boys and said what he thought and Johnny [Colla, rhythm guitar/saxophone] came up with [hums riff], those three chords, and it ended up being the intro, real positive. And Zemeckis said, ‘Great!’”

Colla's contribution was small but absolutely crucial – turning Lewis' original version of The Power Of Love with fellow News guitarist Chris Hayes into something much more driven.

"The first Power Of Love song pitch to Back To The Future writer/director Robert Zemekis was a demo Huey and Chris Hayes worked up, now long lost," confirms Colla. "It didn’t get an outright ‘rejection’ – more along the lines of 'keep working on it, maybe make it a little more upbeat and peppy’ - those hazy suggestions non-musicians like to use.

"Huey proposed bringing me onboard to rework the tune, and Chris and I produced a subsequent demo with ‘UP!’ in mind," adds Colla. "As small as my contribution was, those two-chord stabs on beats 4 & 1 at the intro, choruses and outro (along with a different production ‘attitude’) radically changed the complexion of the song, and Zemekis bought the program."

With the song hitting the top of the Billboard charts, the band should have enjoyed a massive uplift in album sales as a result. But there was a problem; it was never included on a Huey Lewis And The News studio album.

"We probably would have sold another couple of million records doing that," noted former guitarist and co-writer Hayes in a 2020 interview with The Hustle podcast. "We were between records right then – we were between Sports [1983] and Fore! [1986]. When that song came out it went to number one. Which was great, except it wasn't on one of our record. So it didn't help with mechanical royalties but it helped immensely with our popularity and airplay."

In the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter. The band's fourth album Fore! was released in 1986 and delivered the band's second number-one single with the Hayes/Lewis co-write Stuck With You.

Huey Lewis even has an uncredited cameo in the scene as an unimpressed teacher on the audition judging panel, breaking the bad news to The Pinheads (via megaphone) that they're "just too damn loud" to get the gig. Michael J Fox's on-set guitar teacher Paul Hanson was cast as the bassist in the band. But it's not the only appearance from the band in the film.

Despite not wanting to write a song called Back To The Future for the song, the trio's other song on the soundtrack begs to differ somewhat; Back In Time was written with bandmate and keyboard player Sean Hopper and features in the film's closing credits, as well as when Marty McFly wakes up to his alarm clock early in the film (the band's songs Time Bomb Town and Heaven Is One Step Away also make brief cameos in scenes).

Unlike The Power Of Love, Back In Time clearly incorporates direct references to the film in its lyrics ('Tell me doctor, where are we going this time? / Is this the '50s or 1999'). "Back In Time was written after I saw a rough cut of the film," Huey confirmed in a fan Q&A.

Both songs' contributions to Back To The Future being held up as a classic film are undeniable. But their influence has been felt on the franchise beyond the cinema; The Back To The Futur musical had its world premiere at the Machester Opera House in February 2020 ahead of a move to the West End in 2021. The following year it won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical. And Huey Lewis went to see it – more than once.

"I’ve seen Back to the Future several times, and the car is amazing," he told Rolling Stone. "I have no idea how they do it."