Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

The theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week is “Train Songs.”

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Though they retired as a group after forty-three years in 2010, brothers Charlie, Ronnie, and Robert Wilson own a spot in music history as the Gap Band.

They ruled the 80s dance charts with songs like Yearning for Your Love, Burn Rubber on Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me), Early in the Morning , You Dropped a Bomb on Me, and Outstanding, but it’s their #3 R&B hit from 1983, Party Train that appears in this week’s SLS.

FUN FACT:

• The Gap Band was named after streets (Greenwood, Archer, and Pine) in the historic Greenwood neighborhood in the brothers’ hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The group shortened its name to The Gap Band in 1973.
• Party Train is from the group’s seventh album, Gap Band V: Jammin’.
• On August 26, 2005, The Gap Band was honored as a BMI Icon at the 57th annual BMI Urban Awards. The honor is given to a creator who has been “a unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers”. Outstanding alone remains one of the most sampled songs in history and has, astonishingly, been used by over 150 artists.
• Robert Wilson died of a heart attack at his home in Palmdale, California on August 15, 2010, at the age of 53.

The song’s music video starts with the three Wilson brothers driving onto a crowded boardwalk. It then cuts to random people dancing in a boxing ring. During this segment, it periodically cuts back to other people on the boardwalk and beach dancing, including Charlie wading in the ocean water in a speedo. The video ends with an unidentified person filling in a giant yellow ballot (which says “fill in the gap” at the bottom) and selecting “Gap Party” over “Democratic Party” and “Republican Party”. Charlie is then tackled and falls into the water.

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for Nesie’s Place!

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Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.