Behind the Songs: Pretty In Pink

A selection of quotes from The Psychedelic Furs on their song "Pretty In Pink", both the 1981 and 1986 versions.

Richard Butler: "To me the most commercial track of our new (and second) album Talk Talk Talk is 'Pretty In Pink'. It could be our next single." (Manchester Evening News 1981)

Richard Butler (on being asked if he made any videos for Talk Talk Talk): "Yeah. We've done two. There's one for 'Dumb Waiters' and one of 'Pretty In Pink'." (Overview 1981)

Richard Butler: "'Dumb Waiters' [the music video] is great! I love it. 'Pretty In Pink' took the most money out of the two videos." (Overview 1981)

Richard Butler (on the line "The one who insists / he was first in the line / is the last to / remember her name"): "Yes, that's that attitude 'Oh, yes, I had her first - what about her Surname?' It's a sad song considering her role. In the chorus, it's me who says: 'Still, she's pretty in pink, that is, pretty when she's not wearing dresses." (Sounds 1981 [German magazine])

Duncan Kilburn: "It's our single in the UK off [Talk Talk Talk] and it will be a US single as well. And it looks like, I mean in England particularly, it's done very well for us. It's steaming up the charts." (WCUT-FM Radio 1981)

Duncan Kilburn: "We're really pleased with it and it's going to be our debut US single it looks like." (WCUT-FM Radio 1981)

Richard Butler: "There was this guy who recently came up to me after a show, and he had written out what he thought I was saying at the end of 'Pretty In Pink.' The lyrics had purposely been buried in the mix so people could make up their own interpretations. And he had all this great stuff written out – things like Oedipus and Greek mythological characters and the rain and spitting at turntables. He asked me if it was anywhere near what I was saying, and even though it wasn't, I just had to say 'Yeah.' That showed me it worked. I mean, just the end of that song had made a guy write his own poetry!" (Creem 1983)

Richard Butler: "I definitely wouldn't say I prefer the rerecording to the original. I think the original's got a spirit about it that you can't improve.... We thought (the rerecording) was a good stopgap measure." (The Boston Globe 1986)

Richard Butler (on the remake): "It came at the perfect time for us. It let people know we were still around.

"But, to be honest, the original version of the song was better. We tried to make it sound better with the drums and guitar but 90 percent of people say they preferred the original.

"And it's kind of sad to think that if it hadn't been for the film the song could well have been ignored." (Coventry Evening Telegraph 1986)

Richard Butler: "A guy called John Hughes who made The Breakfast Club is doing another film called Pretty In Pink. Molly Ringwald the actress played him our song, 'Pretty In Pink', and he wrote a film based around it. We had to rerecord the track for that." (Melody Maker 1986)

Richard Butler: "You probably get more exposure from having a song in a movie like that than you do from a tour in America especially, it's just like having a huge video for your song. And it's also very flattering to have a movie based on your song, especially by such a prestigious screenwriter as John Hughes." (Melody Maker 1986)

Richard Butler: "I don't think [the remake's] as good as the original. The original has a spirit about it we didn't recapture." (The Morning Call 1986)

Richard Butler: "I remember I was reading Rolling Stone magazine in the States, and I saw that Molly Ringwald was making a movie called Pretty In Pink. I called up my manager and said 'This is outrageous, you've got to sue them', and he said 'Why? You can't sue someone for using a common phrase', and I said 'It's not a common phrase, I made it up'. So we got onto it and found out they'd actually bought it — I just hadn't been told. Which is fair enough, it's the most money I've ever made for three words. I won't tell you how much, but it's a lot of money!" (Record Mirror 1986)

Richard Butler: "Spirit wise I prefer the original, it's just got more feel, but they're not incredibly different. The new one's got a cleaner sound and a better drum sound, but the main reason for doing it was so we could have a crack at production." (Record Mirror 1986)

Richard Butler: "It's hard for me to see this single as anything new 'cos it's five years since we recorded it and it does sound a bit like history to me." (Record Mirror 1986)

Richard Butler: "'Pretty In Pink' is actually about a girl who... er, how shall I put this... who has a lot of lovers, you know, thinks that makes her really good and that everyone's in love with her. But the fact is that they don't even care. It's more about the boys' attitude than the girls', really." (Smash Hits 1986)

Richard Butler: "A lot of people have picked up on us through 'Pretty In Pink' (and) I'm glad that it means they're coming down to the shows because we're not presenting just 'Pretty In Pink' or Mirror Moves, we're presenting stuff that goes way back, like 'India' or 'Sister Europe', which I think are important songs." (Winner Magazine 1986)

Richard Butler: "'Pretty In Pink' is about a girl who's morally very lax, you could say. You know, you see a lot of people who think they're very smart and everybody's madly in love with them, whereas everybody's actually saying, 'What an easy lay she is.' It's just a song about a person like that – people don't even remember her name and she's busy thinking she's the greatest thing since sliced bread..." (Winner Magazine 1986)

Richard Butler: "When [John] Hughes told us he wanted to use the song, we said we wanted to redo it — to make it better. The guitar was out of tune on the original. I thought I could put a better vocal on it, too." (The Baltimore Sun 1987)

Richard Butler: "I don't think we did [the remake] better though we tried. I think the original version is far stronger and has more spirit." (The Baltimore Sun 1987)

John Ashton: "When John [Hughes] contacted us to explain his idea for the film, things moved pretty quickly. The first good thing about the film was that we got paid a lot of money just for them to use the title 'Pretty In Pink.'

"Once our single was released in conjunction with the film it shot into the top ten virtually everywhere. Although we had done quite well previously none of us expected the type of adulation we now receive." (Evening Post 1987)

Richard Butler (on being asked if the remake of the song was the best move for the band): "No, but it was a perfect move at that time. It was a long time between albums. Like I said, we're a pretty lazy bunch, we don't put out albums [inaudible]. And it came like perfectly. It fell between the two albums [Mirror Moves and Midnight To Midnight] so that people knew we were still around. A lot was made of it because it was a movie and everything. So we came to a lot of people's attention through 'Pretty In Pink.'" (Les Enfants du Rock (French TV) 1987)

Richard Butler (on being asked if there were any hesitations on using the song for the movie): "I think it's great. It had been a long time since that song was on the previous album. And having a movie made about our song was just fantastic." (Music Life [Japanese magazine] 1987)

Richard Butler: "Don't get me wrong, I didn't think the new version was [__] or anything like that. I don't think there's much you can do wrong with the song. We just wanted to remake it and, having remade it, it took a while to register that I liked the old version better. It has a spirit about it that the new version doesn't... it has more anger. It's no big deal, though. I'm not heartbroken about it." (Only Music 1987)

Tim Butler: "We felt the original was out of time. Studio technology evolves so quickly that the sounds you can get are a lot more superior now. The structure of the song is basically the same. The movie is nothing at all what the song was about, but it's still very flattering.... It was inspired by a girl that Richard had known. The rest I don't think you can print." (The Orlando Sentinel 1987)

John Ashton (on the remake): "It was a shot in the arm just when we needed it. We didn't have an album out, but the single re-affirmed the Psychedelic Furs. But musically we still prefer the original." (The Ottawa Citizen 1987)

Richard Butler (on being asked why they rerecorded "Pretty In Pink"): "We were big-headed and we wanted to try and make it sound better. And I think we failed. I think the original's got more spirit. I mean, they're not that different it's just the spirit. The original one, it's stronger; whereas we went in and we were trying to get better drums [inaudible] and it doesn't come off as strongly." (Radio Luxembourg 1987)

Richard Butler (on being asked who the song's main protagonist Caroline was): "It's just a name. I like the sound of the name." (Radio Luxembourg 1987)

Tim Butler: "We had been moving toward a bigger audience with each album. But 'Pretty In Pink' opened up the audience quite a bit." (The Record 1987)

Richard Butler: "I think the original version has a better spirit in all honesty." (Rock Express 1987)

Richard Butler: "Some of our fans viewed [the remake] as a sellout. Other people said they liked the original better. I do too, it's not that much different, but more intense. But the whole thing was flattering to me, actually. [The team behind the Pretty In Pink movie] came up and said, 'We've been listening to this song, do you mind if we play off it in this movie?' It wasn't even as if they came up and said, 'write a song.' Anyone else who wants to make a movie of one of our songs is welcome." (Santa Barbara News-Press 1987)

Richard Butler (on the re-exposure of the song): "It didn't do a great deal. The one thing was, it allowed us to tour successfully when we didn't have an album. It fit perfectly in that space between albums." (Santa Barbara News-Press 1987)

Richard Butler: "I put phrases and ideas together [in songs] that I liked. I could say something and then pass over it and move on to something else. A list of things I felt angry about would be a song like 'India'. A list of things that make me feel isolated would be 'All Of This And Nothing'. When I've been simpler, like in 'Pretty In Pink', it's been less mysterious. I can listen to some things and think, Wow, did I say that? What was I getting at?" (Sounds 1987)

Richard Butler: "Well, the story goes that Molly Ringwald played it for John Hughes, the director, and he loved the song and wrote a script that was kind of loosely based on the song — or the pictures they painted for him anyway. It really was incredibly flattering. I mean, it's pretty regular to have a song in a film, whereas it's totally the other way around to have a film made from your song. It was great!" (Star Hits 1987)

John Ashton: "We thought we could make it a bit more modern sounding for the film, more up-to-date. I'm not really sure that we succeeded in doing that." (Star Hits 1987)

Richard Butler: "I definitely wouldn't say I prefer the new version to the original. I think the original's got a spirit about it that you can't improve." (Star Hits 1987)

Richard Butler (on being asked if Molly Ringwald was the girl Richard had envisioned when he wrote "Pretty In Pink"): "Um, not exactly. The girl I had in mind was a bit more down-market than Molly Ringwald. But the thing I find really incredible is that this is a song we originally did in 1981, and now people are making a big fuss about it six years later." (Star Hits 1987)

John Ashton: "We hope we have earned the respect of other musicians. In Britain our fans tend to be older than in the States, where the success of 'Pretty In Pink' gave us a teenybop following." (The Sunday Sun 1987)

Richard Butler: "The movie was totally out of context with the song. I mean, I was really flattered that somebody had picked up on that song and thought, 'This is great to write a movie around it.'" (Interchords 1988)

Richard Butler: "The girl in the song 'Pretty In Pink' is a girl that thinks she's something big, and thinks she's some kind of big deal and in fact is totally the opposite." (Interchords 1988)

Richard Butler: "When we first heard about the film project, it looked as though Aisha or someone like that was going to record it because there was a problem between our record company and the company that had the rights to the soundtrack. To his credit, the director John Hughes said he didn't care if it was the original or a re-working, so we redid it, but in retrospect the original was better.

"There was a lot of criticism at the time that we had sold out by allowing it to be used for a movie, but I think it did us a lot of good. I almost didn't put it on [All Of This And Nothing] because it's been released on so many albums already. But then this is supposed to be an album of our best songs, so I had to ask myself if it was one of our best songs. The answer was yes.

"In the States it's the only song some people associate us with. We were touring around the time the film was released in the States and everyone was using it as a catchphrase. Fashion magazines all used it as a headline. I had invented a catchphrase! I was quite pleased Elvis Costello did a version of it at the same time. He rearranged the words a bit, but what the heck." (Melody Maker 1988)

Richard Butler: "I think that's probably the song – worldwide – we are known the best for, which doesn't bother me too much. I mean, it's not totally representative of what we do but if somebody came up to me in ten years and said, 'You're the guy that wrote "Pretty In Pink,"' I wouldn't be that upset about it. I think it's a pretty good song." (MTV Europe 1988)

Richard Butler: "I'm not upset about [the film], I don't think it's any good. I don't think... I mean, the girl in the song is very kind of lowlife and the girl in the movie is totally the opposite. It's kind of too cutesy, too Americana and... The movie I didn't... it's bubblegum, you know?" (MTV Europe 1988)

Richard Butler: "It's very flattering when someone makes a movie about one of your songs. But it had almost nothing to do with us. If we had written the song for a soundtrack of a movie, it would have been different. The song was written without any thought of a movie, so it didn't really involve us when it became one." (Albuquerque Journal 1989)

Richard Butler: "I was pleased for the attention it got from the John Hughes film. Although – I didn't really like the film." (New Musical Express 1989)

Tim Butler: "The song was written without any thought of a movie, or even being included on a soundtrack. So, we were flattered that someone would make a movie about one of our songs, but it didn't involve us and we didn't intend for it to happen." (The Salt Lake Tribune 1989)

John Ashton: "The 'Pretty In Pink' thing just got sort of neatly slotted in between Mirror Moves and Midnight To Midnight. It wasn't that we were looking to capitalize on it, we just wanted to take the next logical step and make the next album." (Fort Worth Star Telegram 1990)

Richard Butler: "Of all the things we've released as singles, I would think that that's one of the better ones. I think it's a great song. But it's awkward, because with a song like that, a lot of people really want to hear it.

"It seems like it can be a bit (predictable) if a band comes on and does one of their greatest hits in the way it was recorded. So we tried to think of a different way to do it [in concert], and came up with a way where we could do it acoustically, where it would fit really nicely with 'Torch.'" (The Tampa Tribune 1990)

Richard Butler: "I was flattered, but I thought the movie was a joke. After that our record company said, 'Why don't you write another "Pretty In Pink"?' It's ironic. We're not a band that does anything again." (Details 1991)

Tim Butler (on the remake): "It was like a double-edged sword. I think we had a good sound on Talk Talk Talk. But when it was re-released with the movie, we suddenly got a new audience — a very fickle teen audience. They didn't stay with us for very long. It alienated a lot of our older fans who thought we sold out." (Pittsburgh Post Gazette 1991)

Tim Butler: "We do an acoustic 'Pretty In Pink' just to de-emphasize it. I realize that, to many people, that song embodies the band." (Pittsburgh Post Gazette 1991)

Tim Butler: "There's good points and bad points to that song and the rerecording. It got us out to a wider audience but I think it also tended a lot of our audience members to think we've sold out for some reason. Because they'd come down to shows and they'd see girls with pink sweaters on and jumping around. And they'd think, 'What the bleep is this? They're not the band that I thought they were.' That's a bad point but it did get us through to a larger audience. Which, I mean, if half of the audience stayed with us and actually listened to our other work, it was worthwhile. The rerecording of it is totally... we don't think about that anymore. It's not as good as the original." (Modern Rock Live 1992)

Richard Butler (on being asked if "Pretty In Pink" sunk The Furs): "I don't know whether it did. It wasn't like we wrote the song for John Hughes. But we shouldn't have revamped it. We should have just left it alone. The film was pretty dreadful, too." (The Boston Globe 1994)

Richard Butler (on artists covering The Psychedelic Furs' songs): "It's not just Live and Counting Crows. Elvis Costello did a version of 'Pretty In Pink,' and Annie Lennox did a version of 'Heaven.'" (Billboard 1997)

Richard Butler: "It was just about a girl who slept around a lot and thought that she was very clever because of it and very popular, loved, and desired, but in fact all the people who slept with her were walking around behind her back, laughing at her." (Billboard 1997)

John Ashton: "We were rehearsing/jamming... Richard started singing... we figured out a chorus... we jammed it out. The whole song was finished in an hour." (Should God Forget liner notes, 1997)

Richard Butler: "John Hughes' [film] was such a horrible take on that story. So Hollywood. It's very weird to look in fashion magazines and see Pretty In Pink all over the place. Before I wrote that song I just liked the alliteration of it, the fact that it could mean someone could be pretty when she was naked, or it could mean something else. To have coined a phrase that has gone into public use is very odd." (iJamming! 2001)

Richard Butler: "A lot of people think that 'Pretty In Pink' was our biggest hit, which it actually wasn't. It got a lot of recognition for us because of the movie, but actually, as a single on the charts, before that we had 'Love My Way' – which was a bigger hit, and certainly 'Ghost In You' was a bigger hit." (Ink 19 2002)

Tim Butler: "I remember playing a theatre in Turin, Italy. It was on the Forever Now tour. We had just started the first song 'Pretty In Pink', when the house lights were turned on and police came running in because the audience was rioting. It was scary and exciting all at the same time." (Ear Candy 2004)

Tim Butler: "At the time [the movie] gave us an opportunity to experiment and try to improve on the song. It also got us out to a much wider audience. It was fun, but those kinds of things can be very risky business." (Ear Candy 2004)

John Ashton: "Our first two albums had very little, if any, keyboards. 'Pretty In Pink' from Talk Talk Talk was one exception." (Modern Guitars Magazine 2005)

John Ashton (on being asked about his personal favorite PFurs songs and which song he enjoys playing live): "'Dumb Waiters' for its sheer full on attack. 'All Of This And Nothing', 'India', 'Pretty In Pink', 'President Gas', 'Heaven', and 'Highwire Days', for pretty much the same reason." (Modern Guitars Magazine 2005)

Richard Butler: "Molly Ringwald took it to John Hughes and said, 'I love this song, we should use it for a movie.' He took it away, listened to it, and wrote Pretty In Pink, which totally got the whole thing wrong. It was nothing like the spirit of the song at all. It's really hard to say whether it was damaging for us. I suppose we got tied in with the story of the film, and if that's what people thought the story was about, and didn't look much further than that, they were getting a very false impression." (Mojo, unknown year)

Tim Butler: "The original 'Pretty In Pink' was on Talk Talk Talk, not the badly remade one." (CT Post 2010)

Tim Butler: "It was a popular song before the movie, and I think it is a classic song. We re-recorded it for the film because they said there was some slightly out of tune guitar work on the original. I could never figure it out, but that was the reasoning. Maybe the original sounded too 'dense' for a soundtrack. We went to the premiere and we met John Cryer [aka Duckie in the film] who seemed like a nice guy. He said he was a fan of the original. Molly Ringwald liked the song and apparently asked John Hughes to write the movie around that song. Now, the movie has nothing to do with the lyrics to that song." (The Quietus 2010)

Richard Butler: "The idea of the song was, 'Pretty In Pink' as a metaphor for being naked. The song, to me, was actually about a girl who sleeps around a lot and thinks that she's wanted and in demand and clever and beautiful, but people are talking about her behind her back. That was the idea of the song. And John Hughes, bless his late heart, took it completely literally and completely overrode the metaphor altogether! I still like the song." (The Quietus 2010)

Tim Butler: "We go through periods when we're bored of playing it [live], because we must have played it at every concert we've ever done since 1981! But it's a great song and it has stood the test of time. The fact that it became linked to a movie that has absolutely nothing to do with the lyrical content of the song... well that's something that we're still coming to terms with! But it did get us a lot of new fans, although at the time it did also drive away a lot of the old hard-core fans." (This Is Not Retro 2010)

Tim Butler (on being asked if things would have been different for the band if the Pretty In Pink film didn't happen): "Maybe, I don’t know. Before that things were going well for us, every album we brought out sold more than the last one, so it did jump us up a few steps. It did put our name out there which I guess was good. We have a sort of love/hate relationship with the song and we do sort of roll our eyes when we play it… it would actually be great to do a set without it and see if people then still go away happy! On the bright side, if we're going to be judged on one three-minute moment then I'm glad that it's a pretty good three-minute moment!" (This Is Not Retro 2010)

Tim Butler: "Originally, [the Pretty In Pink filmmakers] were gonna get someone to re-record 'Pretty In Pink' for the movie. One of the guitars on the original recording is slightly out of tune. Of course, their critical ears couldn't have that. We said, 'Hey, wait a minute. If you're gonna re-record, we'll do it.' So we cleared up the guitar, but maybe it lost some of the energy along with that cleaned-up sound. (The Advocate 2011)

Tim Butler: "We thank John Hughes for giving us that opportunity and bringing us into the public eye, but it was a blessing and curse. I mean, we got lots of teenage girls coming down to the shows dressed in pink sweatshirts. We lost a lot of the original fans. We thought, 'This isn't cool anymore.' Simple Minds probably think the same thing about 'Don't You (Forget About Me).'" (The Advocate 2011)

Tim Butler: "[The film] gave us a lot more people checking out the band. So it was a good thing that it happened. But it was a bad thing that it drove a lot of our hardcore fans away. But hey, you take a gamble." (Mountain Xpress 2011)

Richard Butler: "[The remake] gave the band a wider audience, but they associated us with that movie, and it wasn't my kind of movie – it was for a different generation and a different set of expectations from mine. If you watch the movie, you might not get what the song is actually about, which I expect most people don't. So it's a double-edged sword." (San Francisco Chronicle 2011)

John Ashton (on the record company not seeing "Love My Way" as a single): "The same way they never saw 'Pretty In Pink' when Talk Talk Talk was out. They said, 'Well, we don't see a single on this album.' And then John Hughes gave them a single a few years later. [Laughs.]" (Popdose 2012)

Tim Butler (on being asked why The Furs added horns on the "Pretty In Pink" remake): "Because at the time, we had a horn player [Mars Williams]. We were rehearsing it and he said that he thought that he had something he could add to it. He played it for us, and said, 'What do you think?' and we said, 'Yeah, it sounds like a good idea!'" (AL.com 2013)

Tim Butler: "The whole thing with Pretty In Pink came about because Molly Ringwald was a fan of the band. She asked John Hughes to write a movie vehicle for her, based on that song. And when it came out it really didn’t go to dinner with the lyrics. But it gave us a nice way. . .  into Top 40. Which sort of had its downside. Young girls in pink T-shirts and stuff like that throws off a lot of our older fans, you know. Some had thought we had become uncool. So it had its pluses and minuses. But we're open to movie soundtracks, we've had songs in other movies before, but you know, not written specifically for that movie." (Murfreesboro Pulse 2013)

Tim Butler (on the creation of "Pretty In Pink"): "We were in a studio for three weeks writing Talk Talk Talk. Some of the band had gone home; it was later in the day and I think Duncan [Kilburn] and Roger [Morris] because they lived in the same area, they'd gone. It was just me, Richard, Vince [Ely] and John. We were just messing around, and the initial riff of it came up. Usually, we'd play an initial riff and Richard would say, 'Wow, that's cool! Carry on. Do something else.' We would just work round and round it and experiment. That one came pretty quickly." (Songfacts 2013)

Tim Butler (on being asked if there was a particular girl that inspired the song): "No. It could be any girl. Any loose girl. (laughter) No way did it have anything to do with the John Hughes concept of it." (Songfacts 2013)

Tim Butler: "We came up with it when we were writing songs for Talk Talk Talk. It was later in the evening. A couple of the guys in the band had left. At some point, we started playing that riff, and immediately we were like, 'Wow, that's a good riff.' We played it a few times, then Richard said, 'Let's play it again!' When he says that, it means he has an idea for a vocal melody or a lyric. At the time, we didn't think it would be the single, we just thought, 'Good, another track.' It fit. We recorded it and were sitting in the studio listening back, when our producer, Steve Lillywhite said, 'This should be the single.' We didn't really care, we just wanted to get out and play live, and do some carousing. It was sort of a hit when it was first released, but then John Hughes was asked by Molly Ringwald to write a movie vehicle for her around that song. It snowballed from there." (The Stranger 2013)

Tim Butler: "John Hughes wanted to use the song, but the company that was helping him gather music said that the guitars sounded out of tune. They are a bit discordant, but that's part of the sound of the song—it's arranged to sound like that. It wasn't squeaky-clean enough for what they thought should be in a movie soundtrack. Then they said, 'Well, you don't have to be the ones to redo it if you don't want to—we can get some other band to rerecord it.' But if they were going to use the song, we wanted to be the ones playing it, so we rerecorded it ourselves and added the saxophone to the second version. To me, the rerecorded version is inferior to the original. Steve Lillywhite's one of the best producers in the world. Maybe they just wanted to get someone else to do it [laughs]. (The Stranger 2013)

Tim Butler: "Molly Ringwald was a fan of the original song and she asked John Hughes to write a movie based on the song, but I don't think he read the lyrics. He didn't want to use the original song because he thought the guitar sounded slightly out of tune [the song was re-recorded for the film]. We saw a rough cut and thought Oh my gosh. What does he think this song is about?" (That Music Magazine 2013)

Tim Butler (on the change in the demographics of the audience in the mid-1980s): "It came after 'Pretty In Pink' and the movie. At our shows there were all these crazy teenaged girls dressed in pink. I think it put off some of our older fans to see these thousands of teenagers flocking to gigs. I think some people saw that sort of crowd as lacking in substance, with all the screaming and stuff." (Tucson Weekly 2013)

Tim Butler: "When John Hughes had done the movie, he was originally going to get someone else to record that song, and we said, 'No, no, we'll do it.' I guess the people in charge of the music for the movie said, 'We can't use the original because the guitars are slightly discordant, out with each other.' Which I think is part of the sound of it. So we went and re-recorded it, but I don't think it has the impact of the original. But it's nice and squeaky clean for the movie. I prefer the original." (Westword 2013)

Tim Butler: "The original version of that was a lot rawer than the one that wound up on the soundtrack. The movie was such a hit. We were getting teenage girls dressed in pink T-shirts and all that, and a lot of our older fans were like, 'Wow. They've sold out.'" (Chicago Tribune 2014)

Tim Butler: "[Actress] Molly Ringwald was a big fan of the band and that song in particular. She asked John Hughes to write a movie vehicle for her around that song, which he did. The movie has nothing at all to do with the song. He obviously misheard something in there. It was very flattering. It was a help and a hindrance in our career. It did some good things and some bad things." (Cleveland Scene 2014)

John Ashton (on the songs by his band Satellite Paradiso): "I did write 'Angelic', 'Bad Blood', 'Situation', 'Insomnia' and 'Outlaws' and a few others at a time when I was still playing in The Furs. I modelled 'Angelic' on 'Pretty In Pink' – it has a similar chord structure and is based around the D chord progression – albeit with a few twists and turns thrown in. 'Cigarette' is basically The Furs's version of the 'Angelic' idea." (Interview with Dave Furneaux, 2014)

John Ashton: "It seemed only right and fitting, therefore, that when the reunited Furs went back out on the road in the summer of 2000 and played at The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano CA., that Roger, who was living in California at the time, should 'hop up' on stage and play 'Pretty In Pink' with us. I will always remember how awesome that particular version of 'Pretty In Pink' felt." (Interview with Dave Furneaux, 2014)

Tim Butler: "That song came out years before the movie, but it had been overlooked on [Talk Talk Talk]. Molly Ringwald was a fan of the band, and wanted to write a movie vehicle around that song. So then came Pretty In Pink, which really has nothing to do with the lyrics. It's just the title of the song." (Ticket Alternative 2014)

Tim Butler: "A couple years ago [The Killers] actually asked us to open up a few shows for them. We did the Hollywood Bowl and the Benicassim Festival in Spain. At the Hollywood Bowl Brandon [Flowers] had the great idea for The Killers to play 'Pretty In Pink' in their set and have us come play on stage with them. So halfway through The Killers' set, Jimmy Kimmel came out, and introduced us to play 'Pretty In Pink' with them. That was great and definitely showed our influence on The Killers." (Ticket Alternative 2014)

Tim Butler: "Before [the remake], particularly in the U.S., we had a fan base. After the success of the movie and soundtrack, we started to get a young girl crowd which drove away some of our original hardcore fans." (Studer Community Institute 2015)

Tim Butler: "I seem to recall it was some record executive who said the original sounded out of tune. We re-recorded it, but I wish we hadn't. The original is so raw and much closer to the way we sounded then and now." (Studer Community Institute 2015)

John Ashton: "On a song like [Satellite Paradiso's] 'Angelic,' I tried to write it as reminiscent of 'Pretty In Pink.' I think I kinda nailed it in my own way. Incidentally, Mars Williams is playing saxophone on that, which is kind of funny really. There was never any sax on the original 'Pretty In Pink.' There's only sax on the remake which was done for that movie. And, again, maybe not the right choice. We should have just left it as it was. But you can't turn the clock back." (Veer Magazine 2015)

John Ashton: "You know I've always gone for the big sound so 'Dumb Waiters' has always been a favorite of mine as was 'Sister Europe,' 'Pretty In Pink.'" (Veer Magazine 2015)

Tim Butler: "[The remake] launched us and got us a bigger audience but it also lost some of our original fans that had been with us for the first four albums. People really thought we had sold out. We really changed our sound and entire look for that tour and the Midnight To Midnight album. We even marketed the entire thing in different ways. People really started to think we sold out and in a way we did." (Equality365 2016)

John Ashton (on the song "Angelic" by Satellite Paradiso): "It's the first track I wrote for [Satellite Paradiso's first album]. I based it on Furs work. If I had to pick a track, it's in a 'Pretty In Pink' mold. The chord sequences are not the same, but they share similarity." (Interview with David Iozzia, 2016)

Tim Butler: "It was a pleasant surprise when John Hughes approached us about it - Molly Ringwald had liked the original song and asked him to write a movie around the song - the storyline ended up having nothing to do with the original song, but it was a really nice thing.

"Sadly though - a lot of the hardcore early fans stopped liking us and said we had 'sold out'." (The Bucks Herald 2017)

Tim Butler: "[The movie's] got pluses and minuses. It got us through to a larger market, but it tended to be screaming fourteen-year-old girls with pink T-shirts. It scared off a lot of our hard-core fans. The remake of the single [recorded for the film] isn't anywhere near as good as the original." (Classic Rock 2017)

Tim Butler: "[Molly Ringwald] approached John Hughes and said, 'I like this band. Can you write some sort of movie vehicle around the song?' And he did. Even though the movie's got nothing at all to do with the lyrics." (Classic Rock 2017)

Tim Butler: "We were already hitting the charts before the re-release of 'Pretty In Pink'. 'Love My Way' was top fifty and 'Ghost In You' was a top forty hit. I think the remake might have been a bit of a blessing and a curse. It got us a larger audience but it was primarily screaming teenage girls who tend to be very fickle. One minute they like you and the next minute they're on to something else. They're not really a bedrock audience and I think when the 'Pretty In Pink' remake came out a lot of our solid audience that had been with us for years thought that we had sold out. So it really was like a blessing and a curse for us." (Jubilee Cast 2017)

Tim Butler: "[The remake] changed our fan base in good ways and bad ways. We got the young girls wearing pink T-shirts, screaming, but it also lost us some hardcore original fans who thought we sold out - which we hadn’t." (The Montclair Times 2017)

Tim Butler: "Molly Ringwald was a fan of the band and that song. She played it to John Hughes and asked him to write a film around the song. He came up with the movie Pretty In Pink, and I'm not sure if he misinterpreted the lyrics or didn't think a movie about that would be good for the teen market! The song's actually about someone being naked and beautiful, which isn't necessarily suitable for his target audience." (Outline Magazine 2017)

Tim Butler: "Girls would come to the shows in pink t-shirts, which meant we lost some of our hardcore original fans because they thought we had sold out even though the song had come out five years previously." (Outline Magazine 2017)

Tim Butler: "[The Killers are] fans of ours as well, and actually asked us to play at the Hollywood Bowl and Benicassim with them. At the Hollywood Bowl Brandon asked us not to do 'Pretty In Pink' in your set, and do it with us instead? So they started a song, Jimmy Kimmel came out and did a 'Kanye', interrupted Brandon singing, and then we all came out and we all played the song together. It was really cool, it's on YouTube." (Outline Magazine 2017)

Tim Butler: "From that period [in 1986] the thing I most remember is that we made a big misstep with the 'Pretty In Pink' thing, by re-recording it for the movie. At the time we thought it was a good idea. It got us a larger audience but it lost us a lot of our hardcore original fans who thought we'd sold out and gone out on the road with the big production and spiky hair and long coats, as was de rigeur.

"So that was a misstep for us. But now the old audiences, including people who hadn't seen us the first time around, are coming back. We feel as though we've been forgiven." (Shropshire Star 2017)

Tim Butler: "When we got to see the movie we were like 'This has got nothing at all to do with the lyrics of the song 'Pretty In Pink.' It got us through to a larger market, whether that was a good thing I don't know. It got us a lot more teen girl fans who'd wear pink sweaters but it lost us a lot of our hardcore fans who'd been with us up to that point and had heard the original which is far superior to the re-record." (The Yorkshire Post 2017)

Tim Butler (on how "Pretty In Pink" came together): "It was Vince, myself, John, and Richard jamming around. I think Roger and Duncan had gone off home, because they used to share a ride back home together because they lived in the same area. So, yeah, that basically came out of a jam." (Music-Illuminati 2018)

Tim Butler: "The first thing we knew about [the film] was being approached to re-record the song 'Pretty In Pink.' They wanted somebody to re-record it. They said the guitars were slightly out of tune, which I don't see myself. But we said, 'If it needs to be re-recorded, we'll do it. It's our song.' John Hughes had written the movie script around our song. He'd written it for Molly Ringwald. So he said, 'OK, go in and re-record it.' Now, the re-recording isn't as good as the original, but, you know, at least it's us doing it." (Music-Illuminati 2018)

Tim Butler: "When it first came out, it didn't change anything at all, but when it was re-released for the movie, it did us some good and some bad. It gave us a whole new market but that market was young girls in, you know, pink T-shirts, and so a lot of our original fans said, 'Screw this' and went on to other bands. Nowadays, we get our original hardcore fans and some leftovers from the latter period so now we get both audiences." (Ventura County Star 2018)

Tim Butler: "[The second version] changed our career in good and bad ways. A lot of our old fans saw the video for the remake and saw that movie and thought, 'What the heck, they've sold out to America,' and stopped coming to see us. But it picked up a lot of new fans, more fickle fans, the girls wearing pink T-shirts, the younger audience." (Classic Pop 2019)

Tim Butler (on The Furs touring with The B-52s and The Go-Gos when they got back together in 2000): "It was fun. Those songs we'd sort of got burnt out on doing – "Love My Way", "Pretty In Pink" – playing them, they seemed fresh again." (Classic Pop 2019)

Tim Butler (on The Furs joining The Killers on stage at an LA show): "So that night they started a song and Jimmy Kimmel came out – he's a talkshow host over here [in the US] – and he stopped them, and said: 'Yeah, that's a great song, but The Psychedelic Furs wrote one of the greatest songs of the '80s', then we came out and they launched into 'Pretty In Pink'. That was really cool." (Portsmouth.co.uk 2019)

Tim Butler (on being asked if Pretty In Pink was a blessing or a curse): "A bit of both! We certainly got a much bigger fanbase from it, but a lot of the new fans were more of a teeny crowd and some of our older, more hardcore fans might have felt as if we'd sold them out. Oddly, the film's story had nothing to do with the content of the song at all." (All Access 2020)

Tim Butler: "[The second version] was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it brought us a larger audience. On the other, it drove away some of our earlier fans, who thought we'd changed and sold out, mainly due to the newly arrived hordes of screaming girls wearing pink outfits." (Chicago Concert Reviews 2020)

Tim Butler: "I think [Talk Talk Talk's enduring legacy] might be because of 'Pretty In Pink,' what happened a few years later. At the time, coming out of punk, people were ready for something that has the energy and aggression of punk—but with a little bit more delicate nuanced songwriting that was coming from the punk movement. I think we did that just at the right time." (Forbes 2020)

Richard Butler: "'Pretty In Pink' came about during sessions for our second album, Talk Talk Talk, by which time our sound had become more focused. Roger Morris and Duncan Kilburn had gone home and there were four of us left. John Ashton and Tim knocked Velvet Underground-type riffs around and suddenly there was the riff for 'Pretty In Pink.' I sang a melody to it and the song came together that same evening. Then I went home and wrote some lyrics." (The Guardian 2020)

Richard Butler: "For me, 'Pretty In Pink' means someone naked. It's about a girl who sleeps around a lot and feels like she benefits from it, whereas in reality people are talking and laughing about her behind her back. 'All of her lovers all talk of her notes and the flowers that they never sent' – they have no respect for her. The line 'she loves to be one of the girls' suggests she's living the way she thinks society tells her to, but it doesn't make her happy. I like to think she ended up happily married. The sarcasm, sorrow and general malaise and melancholy are autobiographical." (The Guardian 2020)

Richard Butler: "Molly Ringwald was a massive fan of ours and she played the song to John Hughes and said, 'You should make a film based on this.' It was bizarre but very lucky. Pretty In Pink isn't my kind of film. It gave us a lot of exposure but was a mixed blessing. We had to rerecord the song for the film, and it was a bigger hit the second time, but the original is better. The film had nothing to do with the lyric and in a way it made it trite. It wasn't about somebody actually wearing pink." (The Guardian 2020)

Richard Butler: "[John Hughes] completely misinterpreted it. I mean, in my mind, the song was about a girl who sleeps around a lot and thinks it empowers her somehow. Meanwhile, the people she sleeps with are kind of laughing at her behind her back. Nobody gives her flowers, remembers her name, sends her letters – that sort of imagery. And then John Hughes came and turned it into someone who literally wears a pink dress, which had never crossed my mind at all! I thought 'Pretty In Pink' was just a metaphor for somebody being naked." (Hot Press 2020)

Richard Butler: "How it happened was I think Molly Ringwald heard the song and loved it. Then she took it to John Hughes and said, 'You have to put this in a movie.' He thought, 'Well, why don't we make that the title of the movie?' Our manager at the time told us this was going on, and I forget exactly what happened with it – I think they may have said they were going to use somebody else to re-record it. So we said, 'Why don't we re-record it?' But I don't honestly remember that clearly." (Hot Press 2020)

Tim Butler: "There's supposed to be a version somewhere of [David Bowie] doing 'Pretty In Pink'. I don't know whether that's a myth or reality but I've heard the rumour several times." (Huck Magazine 2020)

Richard Butler: "A lot of hardcore fans saw the movie and thought it was a little wimpy and not really what they thought of The Psychedelic Furs. And the message of the song that John Hughes portrayed was completely wrong, too. But it did get us a lot of exposure and the tours certainly got bigger after that." (Interview with Janice Long, 2020)

Richard Butler: "It's about a girl who sleeps around a lot and thinking that it empowers her, and she feels strong because she has that sort of sexual power. But meanwhile, the guys are sort of laughing at her behind her back." (Interview with Janice Long, 2020)

Richard Butler: "My brother [Tim] said that [the Pretty In Pink crew] wanted to use the song for the film but they were going to get another band to do a new version of the song so we thought why don't we do it. I don't care for the new version as much as the original one, if you listen to that you can hear that it is much more aggressive, it was a mixed blessing though as in America everyone thought then that the band were cool." (Lancashire Times 2020)

Tim Butler: "The first we heard about the film was when someone told us Molly Ringwald had asked John Hughes to write a movie vehicle for her around the song, because she was a fan. Then we heard another band was going to re-record it because the people in charge thought the guitars were slightly out of tune on the original, which they weren't! We said, 'Woah, no, we don't want anyone else to re-record it, so we'll do it'. But the new version came out far inferior to the original for me, it's less aggressive, more radio-friendly and smoothed out all the edges. It was perfectly in tune or whatever, but it lacked the emotion and the energy of the original. The new version became a bit of a curse for us. It attracted a lot of new fans, but they tended to be young girls in pink T-shirts screaming at the front of the stage. And a lot of our older fans were like, 'they've sold out'. So it gained us some fans, but lost us others." (Music Week 2020)

Tim Butler: "There's a rumor that Bowie covered 'Pretty In Pink' and that it's sitting in the vaults somewhere." (NME 2020)

Tim Butler: "When we heard that director John Hughes wanted to use our song 'Pretty In Pink' in the movie, we thought it was cool. He wanted someone else to re-record it because he thought the guitars were out of tune with each other. We said bollocks to that and re-did it ourselves. It helped us gain a bigger audience, but also drove away a lot of our older fans who thought we'd sold out, because they'd go to gigs and the first few rows would be screaming girls in pink T-shirts.

"We became overblown and went slightly off the tracks. I had a bright red mullet and leather trousers and motorcycle boots, and we had the ego ramp round the back of the stage and all that excessive production. Halfway through that 'Pretty In Pink' tour, Richard was getting heart palpitations through anxiety about the whole thing and it nearly broke us up. We started out in punk, which had been against the old school – and we were turning into a new version of the old-school, which depressed us." (NME 2020)

Richard Butler: "Initially, it was very exciting to have somebody write a movie about - around your song. But it carried with it mixed blessings. I suppose, in a way. It brought us a legion of new fans - younger fans, but fans that probably misunderstood the song." (NPR 2020)

Richard Butler: "The actual message of the song isn't about a girl that dresses up in a pink dress." (NPR 2020)

Tim Butler: "When we heard about [the film], we thought it was amazing that, because Molly Ringwald was a fan of the original song and album, she asked John Hughes to actually write a movie around that song–which has nothing all to do with the song, but I'm still very thankful that the both of them got together over that song and came out with a movie and called it Pretty In Pink. It's one of the lasting imprints we've made on music." (The Pitch 2020)

Richard Butler: "It kind of distracts from the other songs [on Talk Talk Talk], I guess. It was great to have success, of course, but... 'Pretty In Pink' was not a hit when we first released it. It was Molly Ringwald talking to John Hughes that made it become the spark for a movie. And that was all exciting. The soundtrack had some great bands on it – The Smiths, New Order, Bunnymen, all good. But John Hughes made our song seem triter than it was, somehow. It was NOT about a girl going to a Prom in a pink dress. That's taking it much too literally. It was a lot darker. It was actually about a promiscuous girl who thought she was very clever, but meanwhile everybody was laughing at her behind her back. So sadly, because of the movie, a lot of people think it's more simplistic. But look, ultimately, that all did us more good than bad. It did us a lot of good and a little harm." (Record Collector 2020)

Richard Butler: "I think 'The Ghost In You' still sounds pretty good, but it's not as timeless as, say, 'Pretty In Pink' or 'Dumb Waiters' or even slower songs like 'She Is Mine'." (Rock Cellar Magazine 2020)

Richard Butler: "'Pretty In Pink' was about a couple of people that I knew, a couple of girls that I knew, not so much as 'Love My Way.'" (Songfacts 2020)

Richard Butler: "The song is about a girl who sleeps around a lot and thinks that she's popular because of it. It makes her feel empowered somehow and popular, and in fact, the people that she's sleeping with are laughing about her behind her back and talking about her." (Songfacts 2020)

Richard Butler: "It's a double-edged sword, the Pretty In Pink thing. It brought us a good deal of attention, but I think – John Hughes, God bless him – the song was sort of misrepresented. I think a lot of people think it's about somebody actually wearing a pink dress and taking it all quite literally, but it wasn't about that at all." (Tidal 2020)

Richard Butler: "It's about a girl who sleeps around a lot and thinks she's very clever and thinks all these people are madly in love with her, and really they're just talking about her and laughing at her behind her back." (Tidal 2020)

Richard Butler: "It wasn't about wearing a pink dress – I mean, pink was my metaphor for somebody naked. The message was very different. The message (of the song) was from a very sad girl in a very sad situation." (USA Today 2020)

Richard Butler: "It was a double-edged sword in that I think the song deserved a better interpretation than that movie. The song wasn't about somebody in a pink dress. It was a lot darker than that! And a lot sadder than that. It did bring us a whole new audience, which as I said, was a double-edged sword." (Yahoo! 2020)

Richard Butler: "Well, not to ruin it for everybody, but basically it's about a girl – or it could be a guy – who sleeps around a lot and feels like that empowers them and gives them a sense of value. But everybody else involved, the people that sleep with this person, are ridiculing them behind their back. It feels like Caroline's in control. But she's not." (Yahoo! 2020)

Richard Butler: "I suppose [the song's protagonist Caroline] was based around the couple of people that I knew at that time." (Yahoo! 2020)

John Ashton: "When Talk Talk Talk was released the record company said, 'We don't hear a hit.' They didn't hear 'Pretty In Pink.' 'Pretty In Pink' actually became a hit in ['86] once Molly Ringwald had played that album to [John Hughes]." (Everyone Loves Guitar podcast 2021)

Tim Butler: "At first, [the Pretty In Pink filmmakers] wanted another band to rerecord our song. Then they wanted us to rerecord it because they said some of the guitar on the original recording was out of tune." (Miami New Times 2021)

Tim Butler: "We lost some of our original following. They thought we sold out. It got us new fans but lost some old ones who said they stopped following us because of the movie release." (Miami New Times 2021)

Tim Butler: "We don't get tired of playing things like 'Pretty In Pink'. When we see the audience react to it, it is old new again." (Spill Magazine 2021)

Tim Butler: "[The remake] certainly changed the fan base. What started out as college-age rabid fans quickly became teen girls in pink shirts who were in love with the movie. It took us a minute after all of that to regroup and win back the original fans, but these days we're fortunate to have a mix of both camps, plus their kids." (The Maui News 2022)

Tim Butler: "[John Hughes] turned ['Pretty In Pink'] into a song about the color of a prom dress." (Tallahassee Democrat 2023)