"St. Elmo's Fire " is a song by British singer John Parr from the 1985 film St. Elmo's Fire. It hit number one on the US BillboardHot 100 chart on 7 September 1985, remaining there for two weeks. It was the main theme for Joel Schumacher's film, and first single from the soundtrack. The song was created and edited within 24 hours. The song also peaked at number six in the United Kingdom, Parr's home country, and became a number-one hit for John Parr around the world and provided many awards and a Grammy nomination. David Foster and John Parr were contracted to write a song for the film, but Parr struggled with inspiration for the lyrics. Foster showed Parr a news clip about the Canadian athlete Rick Hansen, who at the time was going around the world in his wheelchair to raise awareness for spinal cord injuries. His journey was called the "Man in Motion Tour." Parr decided to help the campaign by writing words that would fit vaguely with the film, but which directly referenced Hansen's efforts. The song did not initially feature on Parr's studio albums, only appearing on the London Records re-release of his self-titled debut album in the United Kingdom. It also appeared on a very rare 1985 West German CD re-release of the album, which has since been deleted and is therefore unavailable. Members of the bands Toto, REO Speedwagon and Mr. Mister appear on the recording.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ford played the song in advertisements for its Mustangpony car. In 2012, John Parr re-recorded the song with new lyrics, dubbed "Tim Tebow's Fire", to honor Tim Tebow of the Denver Broncos. Parr stated to DenverFOX affiliate KDVR, "I was inspired by Tim Tebow so I wanted to modify the lyrics...in his honor of the way that he lives his life as being a great example." The re-recorded song was featured on an episode of SportsNation. Both the original and Tim Tebow versions were available for download for the video gameRock Band 3 via the Rock Band Network. The song is featured in season 6, episode 5 of The Simpsons, "Sideshow Bob Roberts". In 2017, the song was heard on the short film '. In 2018, the song was featured in the animated film '. In 2019, the song was used in an episode of Mixed-ish, where Rainbow faces a tough dilemma of asking a boy to her school dance.
Music video
The music video features all seven of the main cast of the film St. Elmo's Fire looking sadly through the foggy windows of a run-down and fire-damaged version of the St. Elmo's Bar set. The video was directed by Kort Falkenberg III, who devised the concept with the film's director, Joel Schumacher. The production company only had Parr for a single day before he had to go back to England, so the shoot had to be done in exactly 24 hours. The Canadian version of the video intersperses images of Rick Hansen's trek with those of the film. The ending of the video shows Parr singing to each individual cast member from the film before he disappears into the night, and the cast follows him.
Covers
performed an instrumental cover version of the song on their 2006 album, Major Motion Picture. It was remixed by Tommyknockers in May 2006 with the title "New Horizon", which reached #43 in Britain, but failed to chart at all in the United States. It was remixed by 2-4 Grooves in 2008 with the title "Writing on the Wall". Parr performed two other versions for the film The Brothers Solomon.
