Ghostbusters

1984

Ray Parker Jr

Back in 1984 a little film about a crew of guys chasing down various paranormal type dudes and dudettes and ultimately engaging in mortal combat with a giant marshmallow man came to be…and those involved with the creative process of making the movie declared:

WE GOTTA GET US  A THEME SONG!!!!!!

So they got hold of well-respected songwriter Ray Parker Jr, told him that they needed a song for a movie called Ghostbusters, that they wanted the name of the movie to be featured prominently in the lyrics of said song…and Oh, By The By, can ya get it done in like, a week or so?

Ever tried to find a word that rhymed with Ghostbusters? Or for that matter, figure out a way to shoehorn the word ‘Ghostbusters’ into the lyrics of a song??  No? Well, they’re the problems that Ray Parker Jr was facing. So he spent a day or so thinking and writing down lyrics that got tossed in The Round File, and thinking some more, and a couple of days in on the process he took a break and sat down to look at an old movie on late night TV. And sometime during this movie one of those cheaply made, cheesy local-business commercials that to this day populate Oh Dark Hundred station breaks aired…and as he watched the commercial, a light-bulb came on.

What if he made the song a parody of one of those commercials. So that’s exactly what he did, composing it over an evening or two.  Oh, he had some help with the writing, in the form of Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDanials and Jason Mizel (The latter of the three much better known by his stage name of Grand Master J, who also produced the single. Some of you may  recognize that trio as a little group called named RUN D M C) The song’s signature shouted ‘GHOSTBUSTERS!!???, Ray got his girlfriend and a bunch of her friends to handle those duties.

SO they knocked it out in near record time, the movie had its theme song, the producers were happy,  and MCA had them a new single, and they would soon be happy.  MCA released the single in May of ’84, it debuted on The Hot 100 the following month at #64, and spent the rest of the Summer of 84 climbing the charts, topping out at #1 on August 11^th and staying there for the rest of the month. Ghostbusters was even nominated for an Oscar, for Original Music…best song (Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Just Called To Say I Loved You’ beat it out.)

The movie did pretty well, too, grossing just shy of 292 Million bucks. So everyone was happy! I mean, how can a fun little tune like ‘Ghostbusters’ create controversy?.

Never underestimate the power of people to get pissed off. Seems that just a year or so earlier Huey Lewis And The News released a single called ‘I Want A New Drug’…and when Huey Lewis heard the medley in Ghostbusters he said ‘Hmmm…that sure sounds fami….Hey wait just a freakin’ minute here!!!

That’s right…he sued Ray Parker for plagiarism. They settled out of court, and the settlement contained a non-disclosure clause, as those settlements are wont to do. SO everything settled down, kids and teens shouted Ghost Busters along with the radio, the movie moved from The Big Screen to The Small Screen via HBO and Showtime, and once again, everyone was happy.

At least they were happy for almost two decades…then came The Infamous Huey Lewis VH1 Interview of 2001, whereby Huey Lewis just might have mentioned the settlement that he wasn’t supposed to mention in passing. Ray Parker heard said interview and, through his lawyer, cried FOUL!!! …yep, in layman’s terms, he sued Huey Lewis back.

No one knows what happened with this one…whether Lewis settled, or whether Ray Parker just dropped the lawsuit. But the dueling lawsuits became an interesting bit of the history of the song, and the artists, always mentioned in more than passing in any article about any of them.

And Ghostbusters?? It soldiered on through the last almost three decades and became one of those songs that gets pulled out every Halloween (I heard it this very afternoon, in fact, on 107.3) It’s still as fondly remembered and fun to listen to as it was 29 years and change ago, too. And yep, sometime after we’re all gone, as Halloween rolls around, eerie mists rise, and eerier creatures flit through the night…our kids and grandkids’ll be shouting ‘GHOSTBUSTERS!’ right along with Ray Parkers girlfriend and her buds.

So Enjoy! Ghostbusters, by Ray Parker Jr. And ya know  ya shouted it…ya know ya did!