STEVIE WONDER - PART TIME LOVER

PART TIME LOVER

STEVIE WONDER

SONGWRITER: STEVIE WONDER

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: SQUARE CIRCLE

LABEL: TAMLA

GENRE: R & B

YEAR: 1985

 

        "Part-Time Lover" is a single by American R&B singer and songwriter Stevie Wonder, from his 1985 album In Square Circle. The song reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, R&B, dance, and adult contemporary charts, becoming Wonder's final number one hit to date. The song's simultaneous chart successes made Wonder the first artist to score a number-one hit on four diferente Billboard charts. The song was also released as a special 12" version. Lyrically, it tells the story of a man who is cheating on his wife with a mistress, only to find out in the end that his wife is cheating on him as well.

"Part-Time Lover" also reached number three on the UK Singles Chart thanks in large part to a performance by Wonder on Top of the Pops in late 1985.

         The song featured R&B singer Luther Vandross singing the ad-libs and backing vocals, in addition to Syreeta Wright and Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind and Fire. Wonder earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 1986, for the song. Wonder is noted in the liner notes of the 4-CD set Hitsville USA: The Motown Singles Collection Volume 2 1972-1992 as describing the music for the song as an ode to "You Can't Hurry Love" and "My World Is Empty Without You", both by the Supremes, former Motown labelmates of Wonder.

Call up, ring once, hang up the phone

To let me know you made it home

Don't want nothing to be wrong with my part-time lover

 

If she's with me I'll blink the lights

To let you know tonight's the night

For me and you, my part-time lover

 

We are undercover passion on the run

Chasing love up against the sun

We are strangers by day, lovers by night

Knowing it's so wrong, but feeling so right

 

If I'm with friends and we should meet

Just pass me by, don't even speak

Know the word's discreet when part-time lovers

 

But if there's some emergency

Have a male friend to ask for me

So then she won't peek its really you, my part-time lover

We are undercover passion on the run

Chasing love up against the sun

We are strangers by day, lovers by night

Knowing it's so wrong, but feeling so right

 

We are undercover passion on the run

Chasing love up against the sun

We are strangers by day, lovers by night

Knowing it's so wrong, but feeling so right

 

I've got something that I must tell

Last night someone rang our doorbell

And it was not you, my part-time lover

 

And then a man called our Exchange

But didn't want to leave his name

I guess that two can play the game

Of part-time lovers

 

You and me, part-time lovers

But, she and he, part-time lovers.