Huey Lewis and the News and the 1980's

With PINEAPPLE EXPRESS opening this week, I decided to look back at my favorite artist from the 1980's, who is singing the theme song, Huey Lewis.


In the 1980’s, I guess we are all supposed to say we were big fans of the Replacements, or X, or some other “hip” group.

Not me.

My favorite band was Huey Lewis and the News.

They were pretty much all I listened to for the second half of the decade. I may have listened to the radio as well, but when it came to my tape collection, it was pretty much all Huey.



Like many others, I discovered the band through their SPORTS album. Listening to it today, it is essentially a greatest hits album as just about every song on it was released as a single. “Heart of Rock N Roll”, “I Want A New Drug”, “If This Is It”, and “Heart and Soul” were big hits. Even “Walking on a Thin Line” and “Bad is Bad” got some airplay.

I would obsessively listen to one song on the album. Maybe it was because it wasn’t a single but “You Crack Me Up” was always a favorite. I remember being on vacation in the summer of 1985, and being by the water listening to that song, rewinding it, and listening to it again and again. I spent so much time listing to it there that just a few weeks ago, I was at the same place, right by the water, and the song came back to me.



This was also the summer of BACK TO THE FUTURE, with “Power of Love” on the radio. Huey’s cameo (“I’m afraid you’re just too darn loud”) was of course one of my favorite moments of the film.



I think you can also name "Back in Time" as their best video, made up of bloopers from their previous videos.

After wearing out SPORTS, I went back and listened to their earlier stuff. This is something fans of his really should do if they haven’t since, arguably, their first two albums are just as good, possibly better than SPORTS.

PICTURE THIS was their second album. It featured “Do You Believe in Love” which is a great song no matter how many times you hear it. “Workin for a Livin” is also on the album.



“Change of Heart is the biggest discovery on this album. Great song. “Is It Me” and “The Only One” are songs that deserve to be played as much as anything on SPORTS.

Right there, you have two great CDs. What I wasn’t quite prepared for was the first, self titled debut album, of which you probably don’t know any songs. It is another fun one.



“Some of My Lies Are True”, “I Want You”, “Don’t Ever Tell Me That You Love Me”. “Hearts”, “Who Cares?” and “If You Really Love Me You’ll Let Me”. Again, they are as catchy as anything on SPORTS. Yet no one heard them. “Trouble In Paradise” was rerecorded for the USA FOR AFRICA album.

By this time, I was a huge fan and the release of a new tape was like the release of a new James Bond film, a big event. I got them all on release day.


1986’s FORE had a big hit with “Jacob’s Ladder”, along with “Stuck With You”, “Doing It All For My Baby” and “Hip To Be Square”. I was always partial to “I Never Walk Alone”.

The videos also got to be bigger things. While “Jacob’s Ladder” was a simple live performance, both the videos for “Stuck With You” (featuring Huey and a girl on a desert island) and “Doing it All For My Baby” (in a mad scientists lab) were big productions, with dialogue (showing that Huey may have wanted to go into acting from early on). They each even had their own “Making Of” videos of the band creating the video. I have to admit though I never really cared for the extreme close ups of the “Hip To Be Square” video.

In 1988, SMALL WORLD was released. “Perfect World” had been the single before the album came out, and a good one at that. I was on vacation the day the tape was released, and I remember getting off I-95 to go to a mall in Virginia to pick it up on release day. It was an odd mix for the band, more of a jazz album. There were even a few instrumental songs.



But, “Perfect World” would turn out to be the only hit single. They tried to release “Gimme the Keys” as a single. It didn’t go anywhere. I saw a clip of the video on Entertainment Tonight. I never saw the full video until YouTube came along.

The album had a few really good songs. “Old Antones” was a zydeco number and “Better Be True” might be my favorite.

One good thing about the album, it was during the tour of this that I first got to see them in concert.

I had wanted to see them during SPORTS, they came to my little town’s Civic Center. However my mom said “Oh no. There may be drugs there!”.

I know, I couldn’t believe it either.

Cut to a few years later, when I’m away at college, she lets my younger sister go to see a RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS / JANE’S ADDICTION show at the same place.

I’ve never gotten over this.

Anyway, seeing them in concert was a bit disappointing, at a packed amusement park, standing far far away. They were saying this was supposed to be a big event, a three hour concert where they played songs through their whole career. Instead, due to a concert at the park that night by Stevie Ray Vaughn, it was a short concert. Oh well. I haven’t seen him live since.



In late 1990, Huey released a still to this day underrated single “Couple Days Off”. It was a sequel of sorts to "Workin for a Livin" Once again, I became obsessed with it. In college, without a proper stereo, I recorded it off by walkman speakers onto a micro-cassette to listen to until in January of 1991 the CD was released.


The CD, HARD AT PLAY, can probably be named as the last Huey Lewis and the News CD. “Couple Days Off” is probably the only known song from it, but they kind of screwed up. While the song was still on the charts, they sold the rights to a Budweiser commercial (who was sponsoring their tour). Radio stations didn’t play it, not wanting to tie into the ads and airplay pretty much stopped. They made a video for “It Hit Me Like A Hammer” but no one saw it. The CD is still pretty good, with “Don’t Look Back” and “Time Ain’t Money” worth listening to.

At this point, Huey began his acting career, with his role in 1993’s SHORT CUTS. Maybe he had given up the music, because his next album, 1994’s FOUR CHORDS AND SEVEN YEARS AGO, was a cover album of 1950’s R&B. Fine album, but it kind of played to his stereotype.

Bobcat Goldthwait used to have a joke in his act “If you see Huey Lewis walking down the street, do you say “Hey, is that America’s leading rock star” No, you say “Uh, is that a friend of my dad’s?” Since he was singing your dad’s music, he had finally crossed the line.

And that was pretty much it for music. Huey made some B movies (most notably DUETS which really wasn’t bad and featured a very nice duet with Gwyneth Paltrow), and appeared on TV shows.

There was a comeback attempt with 2001’s PLAN B, an album I listened to once and then put aside.



Will PINEAPPLE EXPRESS bring him back? I hope so, even though I can’t say I love the song as much as his earlier work.

Still, those early albums were some of my favorites. I can’t imagine the 1980’s without Huey Lewis and the News.