It’s Music Monday and you got the touch! You got the POWER!
No decade quite does a power song like the 1980s. The 1960s was above love and war, the 1970s wanted you to dance, and the 1980s wanted you to feel the power of a giant fan blowing your hair back, lights flashing, and a guitar being shredded somewhere. With today’s song, you get all that, and the added bonus of a movie to go along with it!
“The Touch” is a 1986 single by Stan Bush, featured prominently in the 1986 animated feature film Transformers: The Movie, a big screen adaptation of the popular syndicated cartoon. The single was released as a double A-side single with “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Dare To Be Stupid” (which I always thought was a strange inclusion in a children’s film).
As it was featured in the film, it was also featured several other times through the franchise – in the television series during the 1987 episode “The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2,” and (way too) briefly in the 2018 film Bumblebee, which my non-Transformers fan husband enjoyed. He knows the song because he likes good music (thank goodness!), and laughed at me because of my reaction during that movie to when the eponymous character loses his voice and memory – I screamed out “OH MY GOD! That’s how he lost his voice!”
Written by Bush and Lenny Macaluso, it was featured on Bush’s self-titled 1987 album (featuring his band, Barrage), was inspired by a line in the film Iron Eagle (oooh, that’s a good movie!), and was originally written for the Sylvester Stallone movie Cobra. Outside of the Transformers franchise, it has been featured on The Goldbergs, American Dad, and Chuck. The song was re-recorded by Bush three times – once in 1997, 2007, and another time in 2009 for possible use on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, except with rap verses and a melancholic tone, which was not well-received.
I mean, can you blame anyone for being turned off by a sad version of “The Touch”? Is there such a thing?
And since we’re not about ruined version of songs, I won’t include anything other than the original version, the powerful song of one’s strength, conviction, and perseverance against stacked odds.
Stan Bush still performs today, with his most recent single released on July 4, 2019, a single called “The 80s,” with a music video featuring Bush’s son playing him during the decade. The single is the precursor to an upcoming album that will be released in the summer of 2020. Bush also had other soundtrack singles in Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Sailor Moon, and The Wraith. I’m pretty sure this was his best-known single, and I wouldn’t be shocked if it the only one other 80s kids know. Maybe I’m wrong.
The song is incredible – it is one I love hearing and it makes me feel good, no matter what. It reminds me so much of being four years old and seeing Transformers: The Movie at home (we didn’t go to the movies until I was a little older), and how Optimus Prime’s demise is a shocking to me as an adult as it was when I was in preschool.
This song lived up to its title, and the movie, which I’ve seen twice as an adult, is none to shabby.
So, the featured photo…
When I went to my first Wizard World convention in Philadelphia in June 2014, I was wandering the floor of the convention center and saw Optimus Prime (ooooh!) and Megatron (oooooh!) walking toward a booth area. These weren’t cosplaying attendees – these guys were among characters who wandered the convention floor. When they went into this booth area, people who were standing there shouted out requests – act friendly, fight each other! This one was the “act friendly!” reaction. I especially love Prime pointing at the excited photographers.
And then they did this…
Too cool.
These costumed actors truly had “the touch.”
Have a great Monday, and enjoy the music!