Home | Songs By Year | Songs from 1979


Oops Up Side Your Head

Buy Oops Up Side Your Head now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the song. And once you've experienced the song, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




"'I Don't Believe You Want to Get Up and Dance (Oops!)'" (re-titled "'Oops Up Side Your Head'" on the single as well as being known by other titles such as "'Oops Upside Your Head'") is a 1979 song recorded by the R&B group the Gap Band. Released off their fourth studio album, 'The Gap Band II', the song and its parent album both achieved commercial success.

The single was released in several countries in different formats. In the United States, it was a 12" with the B-side being "Party Lights". In the Netherlands, the 12" B-side was "The Boys Are Back in Town". In France, the single was a 7" with no B-side.

In the UK, the track first surfaced in mid-late 1979 as the B-side of the 12" release of "The Boys Are Back in Town" / "Steppin' (Out)". Then in 1980, due to its popularity, it was flipped and re-titled with just "The Boys Are Back in Town" as the B-side. It was later released once again as the B-side to some copies of the remix version of "Party Lights". In 1987, a 12" remix was released in the UK with a dub version B-side.

The single became an international hit for the group upon its late 1979 release. Though it failed to reach the 'Billboard' Hot 100 (peaking at number two on its Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart), the song hit the top ten on the US R&B and disco charts and became a big-seller overseas where it peaked at number six in the UK in 1980 and number six in the Netherlands.

Structure



*The song, which runs for nearly nine minutes in the full 12" single version, features a driving bass-line with a simple repeated E-G-A-B pattern.

P-Funk influence



*The humorous monologues throughout the song by Gap Band lead singer Charlie Wilson were inspired by his cousin Bootsy Collins' own humorous slant in his songs.

*Wilson's spoken intro, "this is radio station W-GAP", was a reference to Parliament's opening line in "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)", "welcome to radio station W-E-F-U-N-K, better known as WE-FUNK."P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up) lyrics at [http://artists.letssingit.com/parliament-lyrics-pfunk-wants-to-get-funked-up-cwgj7nt LetsSingIt.com]

*The line, "the bigger the headache the bigger the pill, the bigger the doctor the bigger the bill" was said to be influenced by similar lines from Parliament-Funkadelic in the mid-'70s including the line "the bigger the headache, the bigger the pill" in "Dr. Funkenstein". The Jack & Jill line would later be continued on their next anthem, "Humpin'".

*The horn break is a direct lift from the intro to "Disco to Go" by The Brides of Funkenstein.

*The band made little use of the synthesizer prior to this song, and the use of the synthesizer expanded with each passing album. By 1982, most of the band's hits were synthesizer-laden electrofunk.

**'The Gap Band III' featured "Humpin'" and "Burn Rubber on Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me)" which use even more synthesizer than this song.

**By 'Gap Band IV', almost all the songs which were not quiet storm-style ballads were heavily laden with synthesizer. The use of synthesizers led to two songs, "Early in the Morning" and "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" topping the R&B charts in 1982.

Nursery rhyme allusions

*"Jack and Jill went up the hill to have a little fun/stupid Jill forgot her pill and now they've got a son."

**Their 1980 song, "Humpin'", also references Jack & Jill.

*"Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall/Humpty Dumpty had a great fall... I say he cracked on the whack!"

Little Miss Muffet is also mentioned.

Legacy



In April 2015, it was announced that the writers of "Oops Up Side Your Head" had had their names added to the writing credits of Mark Ronson's hit single "Uptown Funk".

Charts



Weekly charts



Year-end charts



References



Category:1979 songs

Category:1979 singles

Category:1980 singles

Category:The Gap Band songs

Category:Songs written by Lonnie Simmons

Category:Songs written by Charlie Wilson (singer)

Category:Songs written by Rudy Taylor

Category:Mercury Records singles

Category:Songs about dancing

Category:1979 neologisms

Category:Quotations from music

Category:Novelty and fad dances

Buy Oops Up Side Your Head now from Amazon

<-- Return to songs from 1979



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1105174737.