Music is everywhere: We fill the time on long car rides, we sing along while grocery shopping, and the soundtracks we hear in movies are essential to telling the story.
When you think about your favorite songs, you probably associate a hit song with the famous singer who sings it. In many cases, the person who sings the song didn’t collaborate with anyone else to create the song or write it themselves.
Dean Pitchford is a songwriter from Honolulu, Hawaii, whose renowned body of work includes songs that remain popular years after their original release.
Dean Pitchford is a highly acclaimed songwriter widely known for his work in the films Fame and Footloose. (CBS via Getty Images; Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for TCM)
Songs that have been revived thanks to movies like “MURDER ON THE DANCEFLOOR” and “SALTBURN”
Pitchford’s songwriting career began, in part, by accident: He’d written poems as a youth and in college, and a friend recognized that they could also serve as song lyrics if he made them more succinct, Pitchford told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview.
A monumental moment in Pitchford’s career came with the 1980 film Fame. Pitchford and Michael Gore won an Academy Award for the film’s theme song in 1981. Interestingly, neither Gore nor Pitchford were originally hired to write a song for the film.
“Michael [Gore] “He was hired as musical director, which means he was supposed to be putting together songs, ballet scores, string quartets, things like that that could be played in a performing arts high school classroom throughout the film,” Pitchford told Fox News Digital, “But as an up-and-coming songwriter, he also wanted to put some of his own songs on the list. So we were writing songs, but there was no guarantee they would be accepted.”
Three songs co-written by Pitchford and Gore were used in the film: “Fame,” “Red Light,” and the film’s final song, “I Sing the Body Electric.”
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Pitchford spent weeks researching and creating I Sing the Body Electric, depicting the mind of Bruno, a high school student and songwriter in the film.
The story of how this hit song came about shows that inspiration can strike a composer anywhere, anytime. Ideas don’t always strike during planned writing sessions. A simple walk to a friend’s dinner party on what may seem like a completely ordinary day can turn into a memorable day you’ll never forget.
After three weeks and many hours of brainstorming and working, it all came to fruition for Pitchford one day while walking to a friend’s house.
One evening, while standing in the middle of a crosswalk on Columbus Avenue in New York City, he was reminded of a line from Walt Whitman’s poem, “I Sing My Electric Body.”
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“I was on my way to a dinner party and a friend opened the door and I said, ‘I need paper and a pencil,’ so I went to the bathroom, sat on the floor, closed the toilet lid, put the paper on the toilet cover and wrote the first verse, all the way through to ‘And soon, soon we’ll all be stars,'” Pitchford recalled.
After winning an Oscar for “Fame,” Pitchford’s life continued to change with more opportunities.
Dean Pitchford was inspired to write “Footloose” after learning that an Oklahoma school had lifted its ban on dancing for the first time in 88 years. (CBS via Getty Images)
Another key moment in Pitchford’s career was the making of the film Footloose.
For Pitchford, his acting experience in Footloose was uniquely different from Fame.
Pitchford told Fox News Digital that by the time he began working on “Footloose,” he knew he wanted to write a movie and include his own songs. The original idea for the film didn’t interest Pitchford, but an article he came across in the newspaper gave him the inspiration he needed to write the script and songs.
“I was in San Francisco one weekend, and I opened the paper and there was this little story about a town called Elmore City, Oklahoma, that had lifted their ban on dancing for the first time in 88 years, and their high school class was having their first prom in 88 years,” Pitchford explains. “I thought, ‘This is where music can go.'”
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Pitchford revealed to Fox News Digital that none of the songs were written before filming began, but once the project was greenlit, he was able to sit down with collaborators including Kenny Loggins, Tom Snow, Eric Kamen, Jim Steinman, Bill Wolfer, Sammy Hagar and Gore to compose the film’s soundtrack.
Many of the songs on this memorable soundtrack live on long after the film has ended.
For example, “Holding Out for a Hero” has been used in numerous films, commercials and video games since it was originally released in “Footloose.”
In addition to his work on film soundtracks, Pitchford has also co-written numerous songs recorded by renowned performers.
For songwriters who are not performers themselves, other artists are the vessels through which their songs can be heard by the masses.
Dean Pitchford will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2024. (Courtesy of Songwriters Hall of Fame, Bennett Raglin/Getty Images)
Dolly Parton and Whitney Houston are two notable singers who have recorded his music: Parton covered the song “Don’t Call It Love,” written by Pitchford and Snow, in 1985. Houston covered the song “All the Man That I Need,” written by Pitchford and Gore, in 1990.
For Pitchford, having other people sing his songs is a great joy and he considers it a “win-win”.
“I’m so happy that other people love my songs and sing them, and honestly, they all do it a lot better than I do,” Pitchford said. “The great thing is, they might have to go on tour, but I get to sit at home and watch ‘Jeopardy.'”
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“It’s just so much fun,” Pitchford says. “When I watch the video or walk into a drugstore and hear ‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’ on the stereo or when I’m in a restaurant and ‘Holding Out for a Hero’ is playing, I just feel kind of proud. I’m so happy that those guys sang that song the way they did.”
In 2024, Pitchford will add another honor to his long list of accomplishments as one of the newest members of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
