Peak
34
Weeks
13
Score
1,222
Chart Year
1984
"Holding Out For A Hero" is featured in the movie Footloose, starring Kevin Bacon as a young man who comes to a small town where dancing in public is not allowed. The screenplay for the movie was written by Dean Pitchford, who also wrote the lyrics to the nine songs used in the film. This one appears in a scene where Bacon is playing chicken on tractors with a local. He becomes a "hero" when he wins - not by force of will, but because his shoelace gets caught on a pedal and he can't jump off (yes, he couldn't get his foot loose). In putting together songs for his movie Footloose, Dean Pitchford used seven different co-writers and eight different artists, since he wanted a variety of styles. On this song, he wrote with the mercurial Jim Steinman, who wrote most of Meat Loaf's hits, including "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" and "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)." In a Songfacts interview with Dean Pitchford, he told us how this one came together: "We decided that we were going to go after Bonnie Tyler, who was not even really happening at the time. I had fallen in love with Bonnie Tyler because she'd sung 'It's a Heartache,' and the song 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart' was a hit in Australia when I heard it, but it had not broken in the United States yet. But when we went to try to find her, nobody at Columbia Records knew who had signed her and where she was. We finally tracked her A&R rep down to Nashville, because in the United States she had been signed as a country act, and that was where 'It's A Heartache' had first broken. But in order to get to Bonnie Tyler and to get her to sing something for us, I was going to work with Jim Steinman. And I'd known Jim Steinman's work from all of his Meat Loaf days. So I sat down and listened to a lot of Jim Steinman. And I came up with 'Where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods? Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?' I wrote that lyric with an ear toward snaring Jim Steinman, and it worked. He looked at the lyric and he immediately knew what to do with it because it was so much in a style that he was familiar with. So in every case I tried to write a lyric that was in the style of the artist I was working with or the writer that I knew I would have to write with. Bill Wolfer, for instance, was a producer for Shalamar, and I knew what I needed to do in order to snare his involvement. And 'Dancing in the Sheets' is different than 'Holding Out For A Hero' is different than 'Almost Paradise.' So every one of those represented a different head set, a mindset." Jim Steinman literally bled for this song when he demoed it for the Footloose director. Dean Pitchford told Songfacts the story: "I remember bringing in a girl to sing 'Holding Out For A Hero' with Jim Steinman pounding the crap out of the keyboard. When we were done, I looked over and there was blood on the keys. That's the kind of 'DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN da DON DON DON da DA DUN.' He was just pounding the s--t out of the keyboard. Everybody was just grooving along as he's pounding and this girl's singing, singing, singing. And at the end of the whole thing I looked over and there was blood up and down the keyboard. It cut his fingers." The introduction to this song was originally used by Jim Steinman on the song "Stark Raving Love" from his 1981 solo album Bad For Good. >> Ella Mae Bowen recorded this for the 2011 remake of the Footloose movie. Bowen, who was just 14 when she recorded the song, came up with a stripped-down, countrified arrangement with her producer Seth Bolt. The movie's director, Craig Brewer, chose her version from many submissions. A version by Jennifer Saunders was featured in the 2004 movie Shrek 2. It was also used in the climactic scene from the movie Short Circuit 2. >> The characters Marley (Melissa Benoist) and Kitty (Becca Tobin) sing this in the 2012 Glee episode "Dynamic Duets." This version was released as a single but didn't chart. A Japanese-language version of "Holding Out For A Hero" sung by Miki Asakura appears in the 2022 Brad Pitt movie Bullet Train. The soundtrack also includes a Japanese version of "Stayin' Alive." Adam Lambert covered the song for his 2023 album High Drama.
Where have all the good men gone and where are all the Gods? Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds? Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed? Late at night, I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast And he's gotta be fresh from the fight I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light He's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soon And he's gotta be larger than life Larger than life Somewhere after midnight, in my wildest fantasy Somewhere just beyond my reach, there's someone reaching back for me Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat It's gonna take a Superman to sweep me off my feet, yeah I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast And he's gotta be fresh from the fight I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light He's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soon And he's gotta be larger than life I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night Up where the mountains meet the heavens above Out where the lightning splits the sea I could swear there is someone, somewhere watching me Through the wind and the chill and the rain And the storm and the flood I can feel his approach like a fire in my blood (Like a fire in my blood, like a fire in my blood) (Like a fire in my blood, like a fire in my, oh, oh) I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast And he's gotta be fresh from the fight I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light He's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soon And he's gotta be larger than life I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast And he's gotta be fresh from the fight I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light He's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soon And he's gotta be larger than life I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Feb 25, 1984 | 84 | 42 |
| 2 | Mar 3, 1984 | 64 | 62 |
| 3 | Mar 10, 1984 | 52 | 74 |
| 4 | Mar 17, 1984 | 49 | 77 |
| 5 | Mar 24, 1984 | 47 | 79 |
| 6 | Mar 31, 1984 | 42 | 84 |
| 7 | Apr 7, 1984 | 35 | 91 |
| 8 | Apr 14, 1984 | 34 | 92 |
| 9 | Apr 21, 1984 | 34 | 92 |
| 10 | Apr 28, 1984 | 34 | 92 |
| 11 | May 5, 1984 | 70 | 56 |
| 12 | May 12, 1984 | 84 | 42 |
| 13 | May 19, 1984 | 94 | 32 |