Oops Upside Your Head

"I Don't Believe You Want to Get Up and Dance (Oops!)"
The cover of the U.S. 12" single[1]
Single by The Gap Band
from the album The Gap Band II
B-side	"Party Lights" "The Boys Are Back in Town" (Holland) None (France)
Released	1979
Format	7" single 12" single
Recorded	1979
Genre	Funk P-Funk
Length	3:29 (7") 8:39 (12")
Label	Total Experience/Mercury
Writer(s)	Ronnie Wilson, Rudy Taylor, Robert Wilson, Lonnie Simmons & Charlie Wilson.
Producer	Lonnie Simmons
Certification	Gold
The Gap Band singles chronology
"Steppin' (Out)" (1979) "I Don't Believe You Want to Get Up and Dance (Oops!)" (1979) "Party Lights" (1979)
Alternate 12" single artwork, as released in Holland. The cover is a derivative of The Gap Band II's artwork. The B-side was "The Boys Are Back in Town".[2] Alternate 7" single artwork, as released in France.[3]

"I Don't Believe You Want to Get Up and Dance (Oops!)", (titled "Oops Upside Your Head" on the single), is a 1979 funk anthem recorded by the R&B group The Gap Band and released off their fourth album, The Gap Band II.

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

Structure

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

• The song's repetitive chorus "say, oops upside your head/say oops upside your head", has led to the alternate name "Oops Upside Your Head".
  • "Just because you don't believe that I wanna dance/don't mean that I don't want to" is also in the chorus, but is not as frequently mentioned and thus the shorter name is usually remembered.

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."^[4]

• 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 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 & Jill) "Jack and Jill went up the hill to have a little fun/stupid Jill forgot her pill and now they have a son"
  • Their 1980 song, "Humpin'", also references Jack & Jill.
• (Humpty Dumpty) "Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall/Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...I think he cracked all the way"

Legacy

The song is said to be one of the first songs to use hip-hop-styled monologues in a song. The song's success broke ground for the group, who would go on to become a successful R&B outfit throughout the 1980s. Today, it remains a popular song in the Gap Band's stable to this day.

In the UK, this song is typically "danced" to by sitting on the floor in rows and performing a rhythmic "rowing" action. The origin of this unusual dance, unique to this track, is unknown, but is very widely seen. It was especially popular during the 1980s.^[5][6]

Sampling

The song was sampled several times,^[7]: especially during in 1990s G-Funk era:

• "Ooops Up" by Snap! (1990)
• "Mo' P****" by DJ Quik (1992)
• "Didn't Mean to Turn You On" by 2nd II None (1994)
• "Strap on the Side" by Spice 1 (1994)
• "Snoop's Upside Ya Head" by Snoop Dogg feat. Charlie Wilson (1996)
• "Bring U Up" by Romanthony (2000)

Football chants

In the 2000s, the song was adopted towards the end of the domestic football season by supporters of various British football clubs in danger of relegation: on winning a crucial match or securing themselves from relegation to a lower league, fans would sing 'We are staying up/Say we are staying up' to the song's tune. A previous chant in the 1980s had been "You'll get a boot wrapped 'round your head" to opposing fans.

References

1. ^ http://www.discogs.com/Gap-Band-Oops-Up-Side-Your-Head-Party-Lights/release/168731
2. ^ http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=534284
3. ^ http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=1739789
4. ^ P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up) lyrics at LetsSingIt.com
5. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md2tczsGKo4
6. ^ http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Music/Question412146.html
7. ^ http://www.whosampled.com/sampled/The%20Gap%20Band/