Eddie and the Cruiser’s ‘On the Dark Side’ is the first single by a fictional band I remember hearing as a kid. And I assumed the band playing it was real.

I’m not sure I ever saw the entirety of the 1983 film that shares the band’s name, but I feel like it was playing on HBO in our house quite a bit. That’s how the movie found an audience a year after it flopped in theaters, and that’s how this song became a top ten hit.

Eddie and the Cruisers was based on a P.F. Kluge novel about a New Jersey band whose lead singer disappears after a car crash. The band’s story is told in flashbacks as a reporter tries to piece together the mystery.

When choosing how to depict the band onscreen, the filmmakers initially leaned toward a vocal quartet but eventually settled on a rock outfit in the vein of Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band. John Caferty & the Beaver Brown Band were brought on to write and record the songs (though only one band member appeared in the movie). Cafferty also composed the film’s score.

‘On the Dark Side’ sure sounds like an old Springsteen classic. And it sounded to 12-year-old me like a forgotten hit by a band whose story was finally being told. Yes, I assumed Eddie and the Cruisers was a documentary.

Had the movie been a bigger hit, this song might have found its way into the Oscar race. That year’s Best Song category included two songs from Flashdance, two from Yentl, and one from Tender Mercies. I’m sure Barbra Streisand would have been OK with ceding one of her slots to Eddie and the Cruisers.