For My Sunday Song #472, we are going to talk the pop culture powerhouse song, “Hip To Be Square”, by the band Huey Lewis & The News. The song is from their 1986 album ‘Fore!’. This was the second single from the album it was released on October 6, 1986 and it went all the way to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs. It also went to #1 on the Album Rock Tracks chart and helped drive the album to multi-platinum status. Huey and the boys were on a roll. Little did they know at the time, that years down the road, it would become a big part of pop culture.
Yes, in the book, ‘American Psycho’ by Bret Easton Ellis, the song is brought up by the main character Patrick Bateman. Patrick goes on in detail discussing the success of Huey Lewis & The News. That whole piece made it into the movie starring Christian Bale. The character in the movie gives a shorter version of that discussion to his co-worker who was played by Jared Leto. Then I think there was a murder. It is a very memorable and quite funny scene. The song was licensed for the movie, but someone forgot to license it for the soundtrack. When the soundtrack was released, the song was on there, but Huey immediately had them pull the album as it should not have been since the licensing wasn’t done. So, if you have a copy with that on their, good for you!!
The song was written by Bill Gibson, Sean Hopper and Huey Lewis. It talks about how the hippies from the 60’s turned into these square individuals who ended up cutting their hair and working for the man. The turned into Yuppies. The term for them was bourgeois bohemians. It became cool to fit in to a little box and be boring and playing things real straight. Huey was poking fun at that whole lifestyle. The lyrics say they started out as “renegade”, now they are “playing it real straight”. They like their bands in “business suits” which I love that line. All the new wave bands of the 80’s wore suits so that fits and even Huey & the News did it too. It is a comical, yet a thoroughly enjoyable pop song.
Musically, it falls in line with their big hit “Power of Love”. It has that same beat and sound. There is a nice groove, or bounce to it that I find myself rocking back and forth to it. Huey’s vocals, as always, are stellar. He his delivery is always spot on. The saxophone adds some great texture to it and who doesn’t love a sax solo, I mean…really…who doesn’t because you are wrong if you don’t. Huey Lewis & The News could do no wrong at this point in their career.
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