GHOSTBUSTERS DARK History: Huey Lewis Got RIPPED OFF… Then Got SUED!
The story of the Ghostbusters theme by Ray Parker Jr and the Huey Lewis controversy that ensued.
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Who you gonna call?” It’s one of the most recognizable phrases in music history, but the story behind the Ghostbusters theme song is even more fascinating and quite messy. You maybe also surprised to learn that one of the most accomplished rock musicians in history was offered teh theme and turned it down.. Given that it’s halloween today and it’s the 40th anniversary of the ghostbusters movie, I thought let’s take a look at the film’s iconic theme and the ensuing mess followed.
The Studio’s Desperate Search
It was 1984 and Columbia pictures was ready to release the movie Ghostbusters. But they were in a bind. They had gone through over 60 song submissions over the span of a year for their upcoming supernatural comedy, but they didn’t like any of them. They even approached Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, who said no to avoid being typecast as a soundtrack artist1. The previous year he had written a song for National Lampoon’s Vacation – holiday Road.. Running out of time and options, they turned to an unlikely candidate: Ray Parker Jr. Parker Jr. by this point was a successful Motown musician who wrote songs with Marvin Gaye and played with Stevie Wonder. He also had a few hits including ts including “The Other Woman” and “I Still Can’t Get Over Loving You and gold records. He was an interesting choice given that he mostly wrote love songs to women. By 1984, Parker Jr was scaling down his music career to care for his sick parents – telling headline news he was semi-retired. IT was a friend of Parker Jr from columbia Gary LeMel, then a senior vice president Columbia’s music division decided to give Parker a call. THey worked together when Parker had worked with Barry White.
Columbia had a few stipulations for the theme song.
He only had 2.5 days to write the song
IT HAD TO USE THE MOVIE NAME GHOSTBUSTERS
The studio only wanted the theme song to be 20-25 seconds for the library scene. H]
It had to have 20-25 seconds for the library scene.
It’s been claimed that the movies producers already offered the opportunity to write the theme music for huey lewis but he turned it down. So according to director Ivan Reitman they had power of love in screenings they showed test audiences initially and apparently teh song was also communicated to ray parker jr in terms of what the producers were thinking.
Columbia pictures ioffered parker jr $50,000 for doing the song with him columbia telling him ‘There will be 20 songwriters at the meeting but we’re going to pay you 50 grand, to just to write a song. Whether we use or not you get to keep the money.
So in 2.5 days he cut the ghost busters theme and a song for r&B and pop group new edition called mr. telephone man. The ghostbusters theme was inspired by a tv commercial parker jr had seen recalling in a 2012 interview It came from TV. There was a commercial that came on TV, I think it was insect [exterminators] — those guys that come and spray. I was half asleep and they had those packs and they spray like this,” “To me it looked just like the Ghostbuster pack. Then the number came on the screen and I said ‘That’s what I saw in the movie!’ So I thought ‘What I am going to say is, ‘Who you gonna call’ and let everybody else say ‘Ghostbusters!’ I never say the word Ghostbusters [in the song].’
Columbia pictures was trying to get a record deal to put out a soundtrack and presented teh song to Clive Davis, who hated it. He told Ivan Reitman the song wasn’t going to be a hit..But RAY PARKER JR. WAS SIGNED TO ARISTA AT THE TIME AND THEY STILL PUT OUT THE SOUNDTRACK. The film saw a june 4, 1984 release and it went on to become one of the most successful comedies in history taking in 300 million dollars in box office returns.
@rnrtruestories
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
What other topics do you want to see me cover & do you think the Ghostbusters theme was rip off of I Want a New Drug?
@JewelerTV980
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
After all these years, I still don't hear the similarities.
@JaceD4V1S88
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
Lewis sued Parker, they both signed nda not to talk about it, Lewis talked about it years later, Parker heard and sued Lewis for breach of contract or something
@xx7secondsxx
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
"Do you like Hughey Louis and the NEWS?"
-Patrick Bateman
@TheGathly
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
politics and agenda? Hmmm…wonder what this dude might mean by that nonsense.
@rodman9121
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
so he still gets royalties on the Ghostbusters song (and got $50K in 80s money to write it up front), and won some more lawsuit cash ($30K) vs Huey… and what the hell is Ivan Reitman talking about (about the songs not being similar), when he said they played Huey's song in test screenings and the copy they gave Ray Parker?
@isthatyoujaunwayne4183
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
Dude, you could hate Parker all you want the fact that he wrote Mr. telephone man and Ghostbusters reworked from Huey Lewis’s piece under pressure of exact is pretty damn impressive from an artistic/capitalist standpoint
@Barthawlomew
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
The guitar part in I want a new drug by Huey Lewis & the news goes, A, G, D, while in ghostbusters it goes, B, A, E. What ray parker did was he took the chord progression from I want a new drug and nudged it up a key.
@samriley8278
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
Huey Lewis stole I need a new drug from the bar Kay’s soul finger. Also the group M pop music.
@SJCMARK
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
I honestly don't hear the rip off im a musician of 39 years.
@ucruci
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
Who you gonna call? Lawyers!!!
@Maxid1
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
My son loved this movie! Had he been born 3 years later Ghostbusters would have been his first words. We used to take him to the movies from just about birth. I think "popcorn sprite?!" were his first words… You know those babies that cry all the time? He would have looked at them funny. He was born on December 10th so one of his first sights was the Christmas tree we had up. He'd lay on his moms lap and stare silently up at the tree in awe. Usually until he fell to sleep. And since every thing looked like Christmas lights to him, with brand new eyes that weren't quite focusing yet, he did the same thing at the movies. The movie screen was Christmas trees on steroids. We NEVER had a problem with him in public. He was pretty good and well behaved in general. He may have had parents that wouldn't put up with that crap…
@TeeCee_Luckee
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
I think huey should consider himself lucky if they used his song in a screening. I don't think the songs are anywhere near similar enough for a lawsuit. Especially if you hear that band that Led Zeppelin ripped off and they never could win a lawsuit
@HarryLime-ge6dc
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
I don't have anything against either artist, they both seemed like ok guys to me, but neither song would have made it onto an album in any decade but the early 80's. The blizzard of cocaine buffeting the music and movie business in those days destroyed people's ability to create, or even recognize, art with any value.
@lavapirate
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
i remember in 84 thinking a 59 caddy ambulance was OLD for a hero car. 25 years old. sheesh, that's like a 2000 today. one of my dd's i sold this year was older than that by a lot.
@OrgaNik_Music
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
9:32 ah yes. the politics of… being a woman? What are you talking about?
@GTCounterFootballShare
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
I was 8 and I loved that silly song and I didn't care it was on ALL the time, on every radio station, MTV, every car's window, every gathering with a radio/boombox. As an adult I can't believe such a silly song ruled the country for half a year. I loved "I want a new drug" and was too young and dumb to see the ripoff.
@jppryer5982
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
I mean yeah I can hear it but … I mean maybe you might be surprised how many songs are the same cords , like prolly infinite . It was changed up enough . There’s something else or more going on here .
@roddlecoddle
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
There's a vague similarity but that's about it. The main hook in the song is the other section anyway (I ain't 'fraid of no ghosts)
@_NoDrinkTheBleach
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
The verse bass and drum arrangement from New Drug is nearly a note for note copy on Ghostbusters. Regardless of how much influence the song had on Parker, the connection of Huey Lewis to the producers of the film made it an easy decision to sue.
@AndrewNewZealand
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
Suey Lewis
@sailordude2094
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
I was away from the US and at sea before the internet. When I got to Australia in 1984, I rode in a taxi cab and heard Huey Lewis on the radio (Heart of Soul). I was like wow, this is pop music now. Kind a lame, but catchy! Dang, looking at Run DMC and wondering how many of those guys are still alive (oh, 2 out of 3, surprised). BTW, you say that you don't know why the reboot Ghostbusters failed. You were probably born after the original Ghostbusters was released and don't know much about male culture.
@Tinfoil.Hatter
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
Lewis is a racist..he disagreed with a black guy
@downtime-p8u
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
To be honest…though Ray was under huge unfair time presssure…even with the song being very '80s pop'….I think that is a weak defense in itself. Sure it was pop, but it was clearly very "Huey Louis pop" in a way that it was pretty much a rip off of both his style and the song itself….so he totally deserved the pay out. It was a shame it had to be drawn out years later…and couldnt have just been left behind by both artists…but I suppose when it comes to interviews, its that kind of stuff the press are interested in….just goes to show you seriously need to tread carefully with what you say when famous.
@Lemuel928
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
Well..That was something strange in the neighborhood.
@PeterMayer
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
It's not that original of a riff.
@petemarron6677
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
I'm amazed HLATN sold ten million albums.
@svenllr
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
One reason clubs of the 80s could easily mix various songs is because they all had similiar BPM and bass lines. That's what made Prince's "When Doves Cry" so radical becasue he stripped out the bass and made a completely different beat. I love ya, Huey, but I think you stretched it on that one.
@supersentaiguy
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
He wasn’t “ripped off” Huey Lewis and the news is my all time favorite band…but he wasn’t ripped off.
@GibbonInAmerica
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
What bullshit! The two songs don't sound anything like each other! They should have fought it.
@AChapstickOrange
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
I Want a New Ghost!
@israfaeldari5532
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
I want a new drug sound more like the Jackson's shake your body to the ground
If anything, Huey ripped it off!
@80sandretrogubbins25
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
I was sure I'd heard that the producers told Ray they wanted something with a similar vibe to the Huey Lewis song. So given that and with only a couple of days to do it, what else are you going to do?
@johnclarke7626
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
It's so weird to learn what might have been.
Movies aren't magic. They're a horse designed by a corporation, which often turns out like a camel.
@NightrainAFD1987
January 20, 2026 at 1:18 pm
Surprised the Hendrix estate didnt go after Huey Lewis for the solo in I want a new drug. There’s an excerpt of Purple Haze in the guitar solo at the end
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