Ray Parker Jr. played with Stevie Wonder, among others, but his break-out song was “Ghostbusters.”
According to Guitar World, he was asked to write the song—in two days. The producers had tried three different songwriters, but no one had come up with a song with the word Ghostbusters in it.
The music came to him pretty fast, but he was having trouble getting the words.
As Parker tells it , “Then, about three hours before I had to turn in the song, I was dead, half-asleep — it's about 4:30 in the morning — and a commercial comes on — I think it was a drain company — and they flash this phone number, and it reminded me of a spot in the movie where the Ghostbusters have their packs on and they show a phone number, like they're advertising. And that was it! I came up with the idea of ‘Who you gonna call?’ And then I thought, there's no way you're going to sing ‘Ghostbusters’ in a song and make it sound good, so instead of singing it, I'd have a crowd answer me.”
One wonders if the time pressure “inspired” him to borrow the music from Huey Lewis. Lewis took Parker to court, claiming that “Ghostbusters” was lifted from “I Want a New Drug.” They settled out of court & Parker retains full rights to the song.
And so, we can still yell along with the high schoolers that recorded the original track, “Ghostbusters!”
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