Songfacts®:

• This song is better known as "They Don't Write Em' Like That Anymore," the memorable hook. It celebrates the quality of breakup songs in rock's earlier times, as Greg Kihn laments both his recent breakup and the fact that they don't write good breakup songs anymore. It was the first hit for The Greg Kihn Band, and their biggest until they scored with "Jeopardy" in 1983.
• The Greg Kihn Band put in their time before finally landing a hit with "The Breakup Song." It was part of their sixth album, Rockihnroll, released five months after their 1976 debut. They did crack the chart in 1979 when "Remember" went to #105.
• The song peaked at #15 the first week of September 1981, a month after MTV went on the air. This was not coincidence: The video is a simple performance clip, but MTV played it anyway, eager for an upbeat rock song by a working-class American band to offset all those Rod Stewart and Buggles videos.
• The Greg Kihn Band stuck to a rock sound with a dose of R&B, steadfastly refusing to follow '80s trends. They managed anther hit in 1983 with "Jeopardy."
  
  Kihn explained in an interview with Creem how he kept his music and his songwriting simple. Said Kihn: "I don't know what any song has been about since 1974. I mean, can you tell me what the f--k 'The Union Of The Snake' is supposed to be about? (Actually, we can, but Songfacts didn't exist back then.) I'm just an economical sort of writer; I don't go reading history books and writing about Cortez; I'd rather write songs about my girlfriend."
  
  The band had some more minor hits in the '80s. Kihn kept the band going with various lineups and also became an author and radio DJ. He died from Alzheimer's disease in 2024 at 75.