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“The Breakfast Club,” one of the old John Hughes teen angst movies, is about five high school students from different social groups who are thrown together in Saturday morning detention. The film asked if the bonds that formed among them would endure after the detention ended and they resumed their normal lives.

The movie’s theme song, “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” is based on that question.

During production, the songwriters searched for a band to record the song for the film, without success. Among the groups that declined was the Scottish band Simple Minds. Lead singer Jim Kerr objected to recording material not written by the group.

But Kerr’s band mates got him to change his mind. The result was a huge hit that topped the charts, introduced Simple Minds to the U.S. audience, and has been a staple at senior proms ever since.

“Will you recognize me? Call my name or walk on by?” Everyone can relate, in their school days and beyond. That’s why it resonates.

Don’t You (Forget About Me)

By Simple Minds, 1985
Written by Keith Forsey and Steve W. Schiff

Hey, hey, hey, hey!
Ooh, woe.

Won’t you come see about me?
I’ll be alone, dancing — you know it, baby.
Tell me your troubles and doubts.
Giving me everything, inside and out,

And love’s strange, so real in the dark.
Think of the tender things that we were working on.
Slow change may pull us apart.
When the light gets into your heart, baby,

Don’t you
Forget about me.
Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t you
Forget about me.

Will you stand above me?
Look my way, never love me?
Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling
Down, down, down.

Will you recognize me?
Call my name or walk on by?
Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling
Down, down, down, down.

Hey, hey, hey, hey!
Ooh, woe.

Don’t you try and pretend
It’s my feeling we’ll win in the end.
I won’t harm you or touch your defenses.
Vanity, insecurity.

Don’t you forget about me.
I’ll be alone, dancing — you know it, baby.
Going to take you apart.
I’ll put us back together at heart, baby.

Don’t you
Forget about me.
Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t you
Forget about me.

As you walk on by,
Will you call my name?
As you walk on by,
Will you call my name
When you walk away?

Or will you walk away?
Will you walk on by?
Come on, call my name.
Will you call my name?

I say (la, la la la la, la la la la).

When you walk on by.