The Power of Love - Three Times Quiz

Answer: Godley and Creme

By the closing months of 1984, Frankie Goes to Hollywood had secured two number one singles with their first two releases, "Relax" and "Two Tribes", which for two weeks during that summer had occupied the top two spots in the chart. By November of that year, they were ready to release the third single from their debut album, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", in time for the Christmas period. "The Power of Love" was a much slower track than the group's two previous releases, even in spite of the reworking of it by producer Trevor Horn to speed it up slightly. To emphasise the Christmas release time for the single, a nativity based music video was produced, directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.

Godley and Creme had previously been members of the band 10cc, before leaving in 1976. While they continued performing as a duo, they branched out in the early 1980s into directing music videos. Having already done the video for "Two Tribes" (which featured a wrestling match between Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko and US president Ronald Reagan), they were hired to make the video for "The Power of Love". Warming to the theme of the song being released at Christmas, they decided to produce a video based around the nativity, which was shot at an abandoned refugee camp outside Jerusalem in the autumn of 1984. Released on 19 November, the song became Frankie Goes To Hollywood's third and last UK number one single, reaching the top for one week on 8 December. Although not written as a Christmas song, the video has led to it becoming associated with Christmas in the UK ever since.

Answer: West Germany

Jennifer Rush was born Heidi Stern in New York City. Initially living with her mother, as a toddler she then lived with her father, the opera singer Maurice Stern, first in New York until the age of nine, before moving with her family to Germany. She returned to the US to again live first with her mother's family, and then her father, after he obtained a position at the University of Washington in Seattle.

It was while in Seattle that she recorded her debut album in 1979, before moving to Los Angeles to work with producer and writer Gene McDaniels. It was his influence that, in 1982, led to her returning to Germany alongside her father, where she signed a record deal with the CBS / Columbia label in Frankfurt, changing her name from Heidi Stern to Jennifer Rush.

It was in Frankfurt that she recorded her second album, and her first under her stage name, during 1983. The first two singles were released that year but made no impact on the chart, while two more came out during 1984 that got into the top 30 in Germany, while "Ring of Ice" also made the top 20 in the UK. The fifth single, a power ballad entitled "The Power of Love", was released in Germany in December 1984 and ultimately reached number 16 in the German chart. Following on from "Ring of Ice", the song was released as a single in the UK the following June. Although a slow burner taking 14 weeks to reach the top 40, it subsequently spent five weeks at Number One, as well as topping the charts in nine other countries. "The Power of Love" was ultimately the biggest selling single of 1985, and the ninth biggest selling single of the 1980s in the UK.

Answer: Back in Time

In 1985, while production of the film "Back to the Future" was under way, the film's creators, Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, alongside executive producer Steven Spielberg, met with Huey Lewis, the lead singer of the band Huey Lewis and the News, with a view to Lewis contributing the film's theme song. The rationale to using the group was that they would be the favourite band of the film's lead character, Marty McFly.

Although Lewis was sceptical, as he had never written for film before, and did not think he'd be able to create a song called "Back to the Future", he was reassured that he could write whatever he wanted. As a result, the next song that Lewis produced, which was called "The Power of Love", was the one submitted.

Although "The Power of Love" was initially going to be Lewis's only contribution to the soundtrack, he was subsequently approached to write a another track intended to be played over the film's closing credits. Lewis initially suggested a song called "In The Nick Of Time" he was working on with Ry Cooder, that ultimately was used for the film "Brewster's Millions". Instead Lewis came up with the song that became "Back in Time". Unlike "The Power of Love", which makes no mention at all of any of the plot, and was played right at the beginning of the film, "Back in Time" makes reference to several elements featured in the movie. "The Power of Love" was released in June 1985 and became Huey Lewis and the News's first US number one single, while "Back in Time" came out the following month and was a top three hit on the US Mainstream Rock chart.

Answer: The Perils of Penelope Pitstop

Both "Relax" and "Two Tribes", Frankie Goes To Hollywood's first two releases, had been produced as high tempo floor-filler tracks, with lyrics to match - "Relax" in particular had lyrics that were overly suggestive, and led to the song being banned by the BBC in the UK, although this did nothing to dent its popularity, as it spent five weeks at number one in the UK chart.

"The Power of Love" was significantly different, as it was a ballad with lyrics espousing the concept of love, how fragile it could be, and how important it was to protect. However, this concept did not stop lead singer and songwriter, Holly Johnson, from inserting lines in the song that played up to the group's reputation for camp. This included the line "I'll protect you from the Hooded Claw", referencing the character from the 1969 US cartoon series, "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop".

In the TV show, the Hooded Claw is the primary antagonist and alter ego of Sylvester Sneakley, who seeks to eliminate the eponymous heroine (his ward) and claim her inheritance. Voiced by actor Paul Lynde, the character reflected the actor's high camp persona, fitting in with the types of song that Johnson was writing, while at the same time being a significant antagonist posing danger, and needing protection from, as evidenced by the second part of the line "...keep the vampires from your door". The reference to the Hooded Claw comes three times in the lyrics of the song - while it is a main lyric in the middle, it also opens and closes the song as a spoken line to reiterate the importance of protecting love.

Answer: Air Supply

In late 1984, Air Supply were working on their eighth studio album that would be released under the title "Air Supply". While the majority of the tracks on the album were written or co-written by guitarist Graham Russell, three were covers, including a version of Jennifer Rush's song "The Power of Love". Owing to the way the chorus of the song is structured, in which it is explicit that the singer is a woman, thanks to the line "I am your lady, and you are my man", for Air Supply's version, a minor adjustment had to be made to take into account that the group's lead vocalist, Russell Hitchcock, was male. This saw the line flipped to become "You are my lady, and I am your man".

While Air Supply's version of the song was a cover version, released as a single in July 1985, it was in fact the first version to be released in the United States, as Jennifer Rush's own version wasn't released until early 1986. Air Supply also found that their single was out around the same time as the song with the same title by Huey Lewis and the News, which led to them releasing the song as "The Power of Love (You Are My Lady)" to avoid confusion. Although it was a minor hit in both Canada and New Zealand, the song reached a high of 68 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US.

Answer: Lionel Richie

"Back to the Future" was released in July 1985, and almost immediately became a massive hit at the box office, ultimately grossing almost $400m worldwide. The commercial success the film enjoyed was also translated into critical success, with the film praised by critics, which led to a number of nominations when the year's awards season came around at the start of 1986. These included a total of four nominations at the 58th Academy Awards - Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Original Song for "The Power of Love", with Huey Lewis and his bandmates Chris Hayes and Johnny Colla were nominated. In this category, they were against two songs from the film "White Nights", one by Marvin Hamlisch from the film adaptation of his stage musical "A Chorus Line", and one from "The Color Purple".

At the ceremony itself, "The Power of Love" was ultimately beaten to the award by "Say You, Say Me" from "White Nights", which was both written and performed by Lionel Richie, who was also nominated as one of the writers of "Miss Celie's Blues" from "The Color Purple". "The Power of Love" also went on to receive two nominations at the 28th Grammy Awards that year, for Record of the Year and Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal. Although it won neither category, Huey Lewis and the News did win the Best Music Video, Long Form category that year.

Answer: Titian

When "The Power of Love" was selected for release as a single, decisions were then taken over how to market it. While Frankie Goes To Hollywood's previous two releases, "Relax" and "Two Tribes", had both been high energy, "The Power of Love" was an altogether different proposition, even to the extent of how much the track itself was altered by producer Trevor Horn. Horn had extensively reworked the other two songs, but ended up doing very little to "The Power of Love".

The choice of the song as the third single from the album "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" was intended to fit in with a marketing strategy developed by Paul Morley, the marketing manager at the band's label, ZZT, which envisaged the first to be about sex, the second about war and the third to be about religion, which tied into the plan to release it in time for Christmas. It was this that then led to the nativity themed video shot by Godley and Creme, and to the use on the single cover of the "Assumption of the Virgin" by Titian.

Titian's painting was produced as an altarpiece for the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, the largest church in Venice. The piece, which depicts the bodily rising of the Virgin Mary into Heaven, was the artist's first major commission for the church, and brought his work into the wider public sphere. The use of it on "The Power of Love" came from what many of those involved was a "catholic power" about the song. However, the Christian iconography used in the marketing of the single did not sit well with writer Holly Johnson, while Paul Morley also regretted it subsequently, proclaiming it to be Johnson's best song, and stating that, in hindsight, he would have given the band more input into what was done to market it.

Answer: Spanish

Although "The Power of Love" had been moderately successful during its initial release in Germany in late 1984, when it was released in the UK the following summer, after a slow start, it zoomed up the charts, breaking into the Top Ten by 5 October, and going to number one the following week, where it remained for five weeks in total. It ultimately spent eighteen weeks in the Top 40, not dropping out until 25 January 1986.

The huge success of the song in the UK then led to it being released elsewhere to similar success, ultimately reaching the number one spot in eight other countries, and reaching the Top Ten in another six, including West Germany where, after reaching a high of sixteen in its initial release, it got to number nine in a re-release in 1985. One of the countries that it reached number one was Spain. However, rather than simply release the same version, Rush instead recorded a Spanish translation of the song under the title "Si tu eres mi hombre y yo tu mujer" ("If you are my man and I'm your woman").

"Si tu eres mi hombre y yo tu mujer" ultimately spent six weeks at number one in Spain in April and May 1986, before being covered by Dominican singer Angela Carrasco the same year, which led to the sing being introduced to Latin America. However, despite its worldwide success, upon being released in Jennifer Rush's native United States, "The Power of Love" did not achieve significant success when it was released in early 1986, reaching a high of just 57 in the Billboard Hot 100. The song was more successful the following year, when a cover version by Laura Brannigan got to number 26, while in 1993 another cover, this time by Celine Dion, did reach number one in the US.

Answer: Doc Brown

When looking at an idea for the music video of "The Power of Love", it was decided that it would primarily be a performance concept of Huey Lewis and the News performing the song on stage. To do this, the venue selected was a nightclub called Uncle Charlie's in Corte Madera, a town in Marin County, California, near San Francisco. This had been a regular venue for the band during their formative years, and so was thought ideal to do a video in.

However, in order to tie the video more closely into "Back to the Future", actor Christopher Lloyd was recruited to appear playing his character in the film, Doc Brown, the inventor of the DeLorean time machine. The concept sees Doc arrive in his time machine at Uncle Charlie's as the group debut the song, only for a young couple to steal it and go for a joyride.

"The Power of Love" ultimately became Huey Lewis and the News's first US number one single, as well as reaching the Top Ten in several countries around the world, including the UK, where it became their only Top Ten hit. The success of "The Power of Love" subsequently led to the group's next album, "Fore!", spawn two more US number one singles, with the album ultimately going triple platinum in sales.

Answer: Huey Lewis and the News

Although Huey Lewis and the News were a massive success in the United States during the mid-1980s, this did not translate into success in Europe, particularly the UK, where "The Power of Love" was their only Top Ten single. "The Power of Love" was released on 15 August 1985, and was certified as silver for sales by the BPI, the body responsible for record sales in the UK, on 1 March 1986. Subsequent to this however, with the advent of streaming the sales of the song in the UK have significantly increased - released in November 2004 on streaming platforms, it was re-certified as gold in October 2020 and platinum in March 2023.

Of the other two songs with the same title, Frankie Goes To Hollywood's single was certified gold during its initial release; having been released on 1 November 1984, it went gold on 1 December of the same year. Jennifer Rush's song meanwhile was released on 28 May 1985, and went gold on 1 October, before being certified platinum on 1 November 1985. With sales of almost 1.5 million, Jennifer Rush's "The Power of Love", in addition to being the top selling single in the UK of 1985 and the ninth biggest seller of the 1980s, sits at 47 in the list of the biggest selling singles of all time in the UK.