Will you be the winner of free lunch from Jersey Mikes tomorrow? Just guess the common theme of the week from all the "I Know That Song!" songs when we ask you around 7:20 Friday mornings.
Today’s singer wrote this for the 1984 movie Streets of Fire, where it was performed by the fictional group The Sorels (like the footwear brand at Columbia Sportswear? Love those slippers!), with the actor Stoney Jackson playing their lead singer.
The real voice behind the version used in the film was a guy named Winston Ford, who had been working at a radio shack when he got the gig, but today’s singer put a stop to that version!
The music video for this song was made using footage of The Sorels performing it in Streets of Fire, and it used the version sung by Winston Ford. When today’s singer got wind of this, he put a stop to it, as his contract stipulated that any version released commercially or for promotional purposes had to have his voice on it.
He recorded a new vocal for the video that replaced the one recorded by Winston Ford. A new video with HIM as the vocalist was later made for the song.
One of the film’s producers later recalled, “... I think when you look at the film and The Sorels are singing it live in the movie, that was the version that was supposed to come out...but then when [today’s singer] heard it, I don't know what happened next, but I know that he took that guy's voice off and he put his own on, and he had a hit with it. Hollywood is a very slippery place."
According to Daryl Hall, today’s singer had initially written the song with Hall & Oates in mind, and offered the song to them to record as their own. Hall & Oates declined, as their new album was about to be released.
Unfortunately, today’s singer dies of a brain tumor at age 43, but later in their career, Hall and Oates issued an album of covers called and they recorded their own version
Hall said "Here's a song that we did on the new album that we sort of did twenty years late. An old friend of ours wrote this song...unfortunately we had just finished an album. About six months later I was watching MTV and there it was, and it was a hit for him, God bless him.’
Dan Hartman...I Can Dream About You...On K103’s I Know That Song