If Back To The Future Was Set In 2025, This Is The Song Marty McFly Would Play At The Dance

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It’s simple: Back to the Future doesn’t need a remake. However, the original film is packed with references to the 1980s, which makes it fun to imagine how a modern update might look. For example, what songs would Marty McFly use to shock his father now? What alias would he choose instead of “Calvin Klein”? And what would replace his skateboard in that famous chase scene?

A key moment in the film is Marty’s performance at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, where he plays Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and introduces the students to music they’ve never heard before. But if Back to the Future took place in 2025 instead of 1985, Marty would need a different hit song to play – and there’s really only one obvious choice.

The Only Song That Could Replace “Johnny B. Goode” If Back To The Future Was Set In 2025

The movie Back to the Future starts in 1985, but Marty McFly travels back in time to 1955. Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” came out in 1958, shortly after the high school dance in the film. If the movie were made today and set in 2025, Marty would travel to 1995, so the song played at the dance would have to be a hit from the mid to late 1990s.

To have the same impact as a classic like “Johnny B. Goode,” a song needs a strong guitar sound, a memorable hook, cultural relevance, and something truly new that makes people instantly notice it. Only one song really achieves all of that, and it’s “Song 2” by Blur.

I can easily picture Marty playing the simple, clean intro to “Song 2” before switching to a distorted sound, yelling “woo-hoo!” and then unleashing a powerful burst of music on the crowd. Originally released in 1997, “Song 2” is still a hugely popular guitar song and is considered one of the most iconic tracks of the 1990s.

“Song 2” was a departure from Blur’s typical style and the fading grunge scene, making it easy to imagine Damon Albarn jokingly asking his cousin Marvin to critique the song over the phone. Similar to the classic “Johnny B. Goode,” the song is simple enough that a skilled band could likely learn to play it just from a quick explanation.

Everyone seems to agree that Back to the Future shouldn’t be remade, but it would be funny to see a group of teenagers who grew up with bands like the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC suddenly react to Marty McFly’s guitar playing.

What Would Marty Play To Scare Students From 1995?

In Back to the Future, audiences love it when Marty McFly plays “Johnny B. Goode,” but he quickly loses the crowd if he improvises too much. He starts playing music from his own time, imitating guitarists like Angus Young (AC/DC), Pete Townshend (The Who), and Jimi Hendrix. He even tries Eddie Van Halen’s famous tapping technique, but the audience is left speechless and unimpressed.

Marty believes the students aren’t quite prepared for this material, so what music released from 1996 to 2025 might evoke a similar response from someone who grew up in the mid-1990s?

Music in the 1990s was much more varied and open-minded than it was in the 1950s. Today, it would be significantly more challenging for an artist to truly shock audiences, unlike in the past.

Rage Against the Machine’s first, highly influential album came out in 1992, so high school students in 1995 probably wouldn’t be very impressed by nu-metal. Marty could try playing metal from the late 2000s and early 2010s, like songs by Bring Me the Horizon or Lamb of God, but the guitar work alone wouldn’t be shocking without the intense vocals.

If Marty needed to really shock kids from the ’90s, he’d be best off playing a mix of incredibly complex guitar music by bands like Animals as Leaders, Polyphia, and Spiritbox. Switching from a song like “Song 2” to something heavier like “Playing God” would definitely silence the room – it would be a perfect moment in a Back to the Future remake.

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2025-10-30 21:48