Huey Lewis & The News

“Ghostbusters” song lawsuit

In 1984, Ray Parker Jr. was signed by the producers of Ghostbusters to develop the film’s eponymous title song. Later that year, Huey Lewis and the News sued Parker, citing the similarities between the “Ghostbusters” song and their earlier hit “I Want a New Drug“. According to Huey Lewis and the News, this was especially damaging to them since “Ghostbusters” was so popular (it rose to number one on the charts for three weeks). The dispute was ultimately settled out of court.^[17] Lewis has stated that his experiences with the producers of Ghostbusters were indirectly responsible for his getting involved in the movie Back to the Future (1985).

Parker later filed a suit against Lewis, claiming violation of the agreement to not discuss the settlement publicly.

Lewis broke his silence by dissing Parker in an episode of VH1’s “Behind the Music,” [in 2001] which prompted Parker to slap him with a lawsuit. “The offensive part was not so much that Ray Parker Jr. had ripped this song off,” says Lewis, who goes on to blame the arrogance of music industry execs who thought they could simply pay him off for stealing his melody. “In the end, I suppose they were right. I suppose it was for sale, because, basically, they bought it.”^[18]

Premiere magazine in 2004 featured an anniversary article about the movie Ghostbusters in which the filmmakers at Columbia Pictures admitted to using the song “I Want a New Drug” as temporary background music in many scenes. They also noted that they had offered to hire Huey Lewis and the News to write the main theme but the band had declined. Lewis, in the 2001 Behind the Music special, said the band had declined the filmmakers’ offer because an upcoming concert tour to promote their hugely successful Sports album left no time to write a main theme for a movie. The filmmakers then gave film footage – with the Huey Lewis song in the background – to Ray Parker Jr., to aid Parker in writing the theme song.