A Song for One-Hit Wonder Day--Oooh Child by The Five Stairsteps



Photo: D. Sharon Pruitt



“Oooh, Child” is on the one-hit wonder list and available on Freegal.

I’ve always liked the song with its juxtaposition of hope and longing.

When I was first married, I lived on the south side of Chicago and had occasion to meet some of the children who were relegated to eating cereal in front of the kitchen TV after school, because the outdoors was too dangerous. This song reminds me of them.

The Five Stairsteps were so named because they were all siblings, and their parents thought they looked like stairsteps when they were all lined up.