Stevie Wonder Songs - Part-Time Lover Lyrics

Stevie Wonder - Part-Time Lover

Stevie Wonder - Part-Time Lover Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: In Square Circle
Released: 1985

Part-Time Lover Lyrics

Call up, ring once, hang up the phone
To let me know you made it home
Don't want nothing to be wrong with Part-Time Lover
If she isn't 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" with part-time lovers
But if there's some emergency
Have a male friend to ask for me
So then she won't peep 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
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
Writer/s: WONDER, STEVIE
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Part-Time Lover

This song is about a cheating couple, and the machinations they go through to keep their affair a secret. They are part-time lovers because they have to keep it on the down-low:

We are strangers by day, lovers by night
Knowing it's so wrong, but feeling so right

The song ends in a twist (or maybe, a tryst), when it becomes clear to the singer that his wife has a part-time lover of her own who is playing the same game.

Wonder says that he has been in a similar position, with a guy calling his home and trying to disguise his voice when Stevie answered it.

Wonder was a pioneer when it came to making and recording music using electronics and computers. This is an early example of digital audio recording, which Wonder put together at his own Wonderland Studios.

According to Wonder, he drew on two songs by The Supremes as a musical influence for this one: "You Can't Hurry Love" and "My World Is Empty Without You."

Syreeta Wright, who was Wonder's wife at the time, sang backing vocals. She co-wrote Wonder's 1970 song "If You Really Love Me" and had her own Top 10 hit with her duet with Billy Preston, "With You I'm Born Again."

Also featured on this track is Luther Vandross, who can be heard humming at the end of the verses.

This reached #1 on the Billboard Pop, R&B, Dance and Adult Contemporary charts, making Stevie Wonder the first artist to score a #1 hit on four different Billboard charts.

When this song reached the top of the US charts, it was 22 years and three months after his first hit, "Fingertips (Part 2)." At the time, this was the longest span between first and last #1s. The Beach Boys would break this record when "Kokomo" took the top spot in 1988.

Wonder contributed to The Woman in Red soundtrack, released in 1984, but In Square Circle was his first full album in five years - something that didn't sit well with Motown boss Berry Gordy. Wonder was working on an important non-musical project at this time: getting Martin Luther King's birthday recognized as a national holiday in America.