"Love Rollercoaster" | ||||||||||
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Single by Ohio Players | ||||||||||
from the album Honey | ||||||||||
B-side | "It's All Over" | |||||||||
Released | November 9, 1975 | |||||||||
Genre | Funk | |||||||||
Length | 2:52 (Single version) 4:50 (Album version) |
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Label | Mercury | |||||||||
Ohio Players singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Love Rollercoaster" | ||||||||||
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Single by Red Hot Chili Peppers | ||||||||||
from the album Beavis and Butt-Head Do America Soundtrack | ||||||||||
Released | November 1996 | |||||||||
Format | CD | |||||||||
Recorded | 1996 | |||||||||
Genre | Funk rock | |||||||||
Length | 4:37 (album version) 3:31 (single version) |
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Label | Geffen | |||||||||
Producer(s) | Sylvia Massy, Red Hot Chili Peppers | |||||||||
Red Hot Chili Peppers singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Love Rollercoaster" is a song by American funk/R&B band Ohio Players, originally featured on their 1975 album Honey. It was composed by Beck, Bonner, Jones, Middlebrooks, Pierce, Satchell, and Williams. It was a number-one U.S. hit in January 1976, and became a Gold record. In Canada, the song spent two weeks at number two.
The song uses the roller coaster, a common theme park attraction, as a metaphor for the ups and downs of dating and romantic relationships. The roller coaster metaphor is also suggested musically as the guitarist plays a funk riff which slides up and back down repeatedly throughout the song, from the key of C down to the key of A and back up to the key of C.
The song has a persistent urban legend. During an instrumental portion of the song, a high-pitched scream is heard (between 1:24 and 1:28 on the single version, or between 2:32 and 2:36 on the album version); this was Billy Beck, but according to the most common legend, it was the voice of an individual being murdered live while the tape was rolling. The "victim's" identity varies greatly depending on the version. The supposed sources of the scream have included an individual who was killed at some prior time, her scream inexplicably recorded and looped into the track. Another version says that a girl has fallen off the roller coaster and was screaming to her death. Another version tells of a rabbit being killed outside the studio whose scream was accidentally picked up by the band's recording equipment – highly implausible, since professional recording studios are soundproof. The most widespread version of the myth, however, tells that Ester Cordet, who appeared nude on the Honey album cover, had been badly burned by the super-heated honey used for the photo shoot, which occurred simultaneous with the recording session, and her agonized screams were inadvertently captured on tape.
Casey Kasem reported the urban myth of the woman being killed in the studio recording booth on his radio show, American Top 40, when the song was on the charts in 1976.