No song worked, especially “To Be A Lover,” or anything we were playing in the boom box in the number of times that we tried to shoot it—nothing worked. We had songwriters come in and try and write a song—nothing worked.

I was driving to work and on my way to the editing room, and I just found this tape again the other day, there was a tape that I had in the car that was the mix from our wedding and it was called “The Legendary ‘I Do’ Tape,” and I put it on and I was just listening to it on the way. I’m not that much of a wimp, but for some reason I just felt like listening to my wedding tape. [Laughs] And “In Your Eyes” comes on. And I got this chill because all the words linked up to what we’d filmed and what we were struggling to find a score to or a song.

It was like about following instincts. I drive off in my car. We had a car in the shot. It was like a sweet sounding but underneath the surface tough love song. A loving song, but there was a toughness to the wistful quality. It was just like I got a chill. And I just raced to the editing room and we put it on and it was perfect. It was unbelievable that we’d found something that actually worked with the shot, which we loved because, like, look at Cusack’s face. It’s all there except the song that’s on the boom box.

So I went racing into Jim Brooks’ office and said, “We got to get ‘In Your Eyes.'” He called David Geffen and David said he would do his best to try and get the song, but he couldn’t guarantee anything because Peter Gabriel had never really given anything up for movies, I think it was that, and also he wasn’t sure about Gabriel’s relationship to the song and how available the song would ever be.

We had a screening—I’m giving you the long version—and a guy from Geffen Records came and saw the movie, took me aside and said, “I’m going to tell you what nobody else is going to tell you. It’s not Fast Times. You’ve really missed with this movie. If you really want to save your career you should be doing another Spicoli movie, and I’m just going to tell you the truth right now.” I was like, “Oh f—, now we’re really not going to get the song. We’re doomed.”

Then I guess what I heard later was that Rosanna Arquette [for whom “In Your Eyes” is largely known to have been written for when she and Gabriel were an item in the ’80s] put in a good word for us with Peter Gabriel, so he asked to see the movie to make the decision. And I was given a day to call him at his studio, I think it was in Germany, and so I got up super early to make this call, they put me on the phone with him after we’d sent him a tape, but I knew he’s seen the movie and stuff. And he got on and there was this kind of you know, ethereal voice, Peter Gabriel, really nice, and he said [accent], “I appreciate you asking for the song. It’s a very personal song to me and I just hope you don’t mind that have to turn you down.”

I just remember being in the kitchen and just going, “Oh man.” I said I understood and I appreciated it and was he sure and he said yes, he was sure, and I was saying goodbye to him and I remember the phone was like on its way to the cradle, I think we’d already even said goodbye. And I just, like, was seized with this thing and I pulled the phone back up and I go, “Why? I got to ask you why. Why can’t we have the song? Why was it wrong?”

And he said, “Well when he takes the overdose it just didn’t feel like the right kind of use of the song.” And I’m like, “When he takes the overdose?” He said, “Yeah, you’re making the John Belushi story, right?” I said, “No, no, no. It’s a movie about the guy in high school with the trench coat.” And he’s like, “Oh, the high school movie. We haven’t watched that yet.” Hallelujah! “Please watch the high school movie and let me know if it works in the high school movie.” And he said, “Oh yeah yeah yeah, okay, great.” And then we got the word back that he said yes.

Back in 1984, when soundtracks were all-star events, Gabriel snuck this obscure gem onto the Against All Odds LP. And "Fire" sounds exactly like the product of its era: more playful and immediate than Security, more keyboard-heavy and textured than So – pairing imagistic lyrics with clanking percussion and synth-horn emulations. "Darkness heavy on my shoulder," Gabriel confesses. "Smell the smoke, sickly sweet/The body's weak, the shadow's strong." ("Against All Odds," of course, is a Phil Collins powerhouse, and the soundtrack also features a Mike Rutherford solo tune, making the set essential for Genesis fans. Who knew it would take a middling romantic thriller to unite 3/5 of the band's classic lineup?)