1985

This song is about a woman who is still living in the past, reliving her glory years when she was a teenager in 1985. She had big dreams, but now spends her time immersing herself in '80s pop culture. Music icons from the '80s mentioned in the song are: Whitesnake, Madonna, U2, Blondie, MTV, Bruce Springsteen, Ozzy Osbourne, Wham! and Van Halen. Movies from the '80s mentioned: The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire and Pretty In Pink.

This song was written and originally released by the band SR-71 on their 2004 album Here We Go Again. In a Songfacts interview with Bowling For Soup lead singer Jaret Reddick, he explained how they ended up recording it. Said Reddick: "'1985' was interesting because we were coming off our biggest record, which was Drunk Enough To Dance. And we went in thinking that we had a complete album, and we recorded a complete album. We did Hangover You Don't Deserve, and it was pretty much done. Butch Walker produced three songs on that album, and we recorded the whole record at his place. And his manager called and said, 'Hey, a song came across my desk. You know Mitch Allan, right?' I'm like, 'Yeah.' 'Well, he wants you to call him.' So I call Mitch Allan from SR-71, he's like, 'Dude, I've got this song. It's a freakin' hit for you guys. It sounds like you.' And evidently that whole conversation happened because Mitch was pitching his band to Jonathan Daniel, who is Butch's manager, trying to get this record that they had put out in Japan released here in the United States. And JD said, 'Dude, that sounds like a Bowling for Soup song.' And Mitch said, 'You know what? You're right.' So anyway, he sends me the song. And I'm actually like, 'Man, we're done. We're literally leaving tomorrow. This album is complete.' We had a little studio apartment that we were staying in and I listened to the song a few times, and I'm like, 'Yeah, it's good.' And the night goes on, had a few more beers, me and Gary (Wiseman - BFS drummer) sat in our kitchen and listened to it twice. And we're just like, This is a great song. We don't really know that it's going to be a single, but it is great. We might as well just do it. So we went back in the next day and we cut it. So my thing to Mitch was, Look, there's some lines in here that definitely don't sound like something I would say. Like, I would never say, 'The rubber broke.' Or any of those kind of things. So I was like, I definitely think it needs a different bridge, I think it's gotta have more of a catchy intro. So basically I said, If you'll let me have my way with it and make it a Bowling for Soup song, then I think it'll work. And history shows that it did indeed work."

SR-71 lead singer Mitch Allan penned this song as a potential lead-off single for his band's third album. Having been dropped by RCA records when the label merged with Sony Music in 2004, Allan was shopping the record around hoping to get SR-71 signed to a new label, with little success. "All the labels said they were not interested in our sound, that we sounded too pop/punk, even though we were just a rock band," explained Allan in an interview with Alternative Addiction. "They also thought that the song 1985 was too old school, and people would not understand the lyrics, and it would just never work." Frustrated with no label interested in his band's music, Allan jumped at the chance, when Bowling For Soup expressed an interest in recording this song. "Every single person who told me the song would never work and this kind of music is finished- it made me realize those people are idiots," said Allan. "They want to dictate pop culture and dictate what people hear, but meanwhile they are not listening to what the audience wants. They want to be the ones to set the trends, but they don't know what they're talking about." With the success of "1985," Allan switched from being a recording artist to songwriting and has subsequently penned songs for a wide spectrum of artists including Chris Daughtry, Faith Hill, Jonas Brothers, Tokio Hotel, Anberlin and Bo Bice.