Nashville artist recalls creating hit song with Patrick Swayze

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Patrick Swayze, an actor, dancer, and man of many talents, will be featured Thursday, April 14, on ABC’s hit show Superstar.

Swayze scored a chart topping hit with his movie Dirty Dancing. Something you may not know, the co-writer on the hit song featured in the film, “She’s Like the Wind”, lives in the Nashville area.

News 2’s Neil Orne spoke with Stacy Widelitz about his memories of making the song with Swayze.

“What was actually interesting was a way you could tell who knew him and who really didn’t know him is If anybody called him, ‘Patrick’, then you know they knew him to a certain extent. But, if they called him, ‘Buddy’, it was family and friends.”

For Widelitz it was always, ‘Buddy.’ It was a friendship born in Los Angeles acting class in 1984 and made legendary when Swayze showed up at his house with a guitar in hand.

“The first two lines were intriguing, which were ‘She’s like the wind through my tree. She writes the night next to me.’ And then I didn’t like the third and fourth lines that he had, which I told him and he got a little defensive and said, ‘well, what would you say?’ So I, just off the top of my head, I said,’ Well, you know, thinking nature imagery,’ I said, ‘She leads me through moonlight only to burn me with the sun.’ And he then said, ‘What does that mean?’ And I said, ‘I don’t care. Just write it down.’”

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The song nearly made it into two other productions, but as fate would have it, the song landed on the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing – a movie that no one thought would amount to much.

Soon after Widelitz said it went Gold, but, “Like a week and a half later, I called him and I said, ‘Hey, you know, when do I get the gold record? Does it come in the mail? How does it work?’ And he said, ‘you’re not getting the gold record.’ And I said, ‘why you told me I am?’ He said, ‘because now you’re getting a platinum record.’”

It was a lifelong friendship that was cut short when Swayze passed away in 2009. But, the two friends still visit.

“Yes, I miss him. He shows up in my dreams occasionally, which is really an interesting thing. And I’ve talked to Lisa about that. His wife. And you know, he was a really fun guy and he was kind of a jokester. Almost goofy, but had a good sense of humor and just an interesting person to be around also. I mean, just the the the many abilities that he had was astonishing.”