One of my favorite ’80s pop songs is inexorably tied to one of my favorite ’80s movies. I can’t tell if I love “The Power of Love” so much because of Back to the Future, or because it’s a good song on its own, and we will never know. Because I can never hear it, ever, without seeing in my mind’s eye Marty McFly skateboarding to school while holding onto the back of some dude’s pickup truck. Or seeing the Huey Lewis cameo, which was — I’m sure I’ve shared this detail before; I’m repetitive to a fault — the first of those unsung cameos I can remember spotting on my own. “YOU GUYS, that is THE REAL HUEY LEWIS, my mind is BLOWN,” etc. So really, Back to the Future itself is a kind of long-form video that will embed the song in your head forever, but Huey made his own vid, and got Doc Brown himself to cameo. And no, I don’t mean Christopher Lloyd. I mean Doc Brown.
The plot is basically: Huey and the gang are at a bar bragging up their big movie deal, and showing off their Back to the Future jackets, when Doc Brown pulls up outside in the DeLorean and says, “They’re expecting me,” and gets out and leaves the time machine with a bunch of curious ’80s residents who then steal it before he can enjoy the show. And then… Huey performs and at the end we just get some shots from the movie of the flaming tire tracks and the spinning license plate. This is very poor narrative development, Huey. But a damn catchy song. You’re not wrong about that one.
