Hip to Be Square
1986 single by Huey Lewis and the News
"Hip to Be Square" is a song by Huey Lewis and the News, written by Bill Gibson, Sean Hopper, and Huey Lewis, and released in 1986 as the second single from the multi-platinum album Fore!
The song features San Francisco 49ers players Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott, Dwight Clark, and Riki Ellison singing backup vocals. The single reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100. In later concerts, Lewis performed the song as "(Too) Hip to Be Square", as performed on their live album, Live at 25.
Composition
In a 2008 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lewis stated he originally wrote the song's lyrics in the third person, "He used to be a renegade...". He referenced the book Bobos in Paradise in describing the song's inspiration, explaining that "Hip to Be Square" was about the "phenomenon where people from the '60s started to drop back in, cut their hair, work out, that kind of crap, but they kept their bohemian tastes. ... bourgeois bohemians." Lewis later modified the lyrics to be in the first person as he believed it would enhance the joke, but stated this had unintentionally led to the interpretation of the song as an "anthem for square people".
Reception
Billboard said that "this bouncy stomp should find a wide constituency identifying with the lyrics." Cash Box said that "utilizing the 'Power of Love' formula," it "jumps off to a quick start and drives home the populist message of its title."
Appearances
American Psycho
The song is referred to in the novel American Psycho when the main character, Patrick Bateman, provides a lengthy critique of Huey Lewis and the News' career.
The song was then featured in the film adaptation during a scene in which Bateman (played by Christian Bale) gives an abridged version of his critique from the novel to his coworker Paul Allen (Jared Leto) just before murdering him with an axe:
"In '87, Huey released this ...
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Hip to Be Square” is 1986 single by Huey Lewis and the News. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Square, single and Huey, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1986 single by Huey Lewis and the News” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16156914. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986 and 2008.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Hip to Be Square”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Hip to Be Square primary sources, Hip to Be Square archive and Square research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Hip to Be Square” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.