Grandiose, melodramatic, immense in sound and scope: You can say all this and more about 1984’s “Holding Out for a Hero” from Bonnie Tyler. It’s one of her most iconic songs, right up there with the equally musical theater-like “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which hit No. 1 in 1983 and stayed there for four weeks. “Holding Out for a Hero,” though, only reached No. 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. But thanks to movies and TV shows, it got a remarkable second life.
It’s strange to think that “Holding Out for a Hero” never got higher than No. 34. Sure, the song is mostly chorus, plus those background “doo doo doos” and the guys with the whips in the song’s Western-themed music video. But wow, if it isn’t over-the-top in the best, hammiest, catchiest way possible. That’s not by accident, as the song comes from Dean Pitchford and Jim Steinman, the latter of whom wrote “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” a song with a wild backstory involving a Nosferatu musical.
Steinman’s theatrical sensibilities were a perfect fit for a movie like 1984’s “Footloose,” for which he co-wrote “Holding Out for a Hero.” But even though Tyler’s semi-hit made it onto the movie’s soundtrack, it wasn’t “Footloose” that elevated the song to its legendary current status — it was subsequent films and shows like “Shrek 2,” “Glee,” “Short Circuit 2,” “Who’s Harry Crumb?,” and loads more. Now, “Holding Out for a Hero” is Tyler’s second-most-streamed song on Spotify at 580 million listens.
Hollywood gave ‘Holding Out for a Hero’ a massive shot in the arm
It looks like “Holding Out for a Hero” was a prophetic song title, as Bonnie Tyler’s song grew into a hit over the decades. The song’s music video provided the template: explosions and fire, panoramic Grand Canyon shots, black-clad villains, a damsel in distress, and even a white knight on horseback galloping to the rescue. It’s all incredibly cheesy and perfectly suited to cinema, especially of the tongue-in-cheek variety. Hence Hollywood’s apparent love of the song.
While we can’t account for each and every appearance of “Holding Out for a Hero” in film and TV, there’s a definite pattern to its use. In “Shrek 2” (2004), the song accompanies a rescue-the-princess castle siege featuring a giant gingerbread man carrying a de-ogred Shrek on his shoulder. In “Short Circuit 2” (1988), the song accompanies a punk-dressed Johnny 5, the sentient robot, chasing down a villain on a speed boat. In “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (2023), the song accompanies a Mario training montage where he gets beaten up trying to learn about his mushroom-given powers. Each of these uses features a hero-in-training, is played for laughs, but is still laced with some kind of heartfelt sincerity. It looks like Hollywood found the perfect niche for “Holding Out for a Hero.”
This is how, over 40 years after its 1984 release, “Holding Out for a Hero” surpassed Tyler’s 1978 “It’s a Heartache,” which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and which you might have never heard of). That song has 225 million listens on Spotify, a full 355 million below “Holding Out for a Hero.”
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