Who wrote "Working at the Car Wsh"?

August 11, 2006 12:38 AM

Does anyone know who wrote "Working at the Car Wash"? No who sang it or who produced the song.
posted by zackdog to Writing & Language (8 answers total)

Norman Whitefield ?
posted by cadastral at 12:43 AM on August 11, 2006

Best answer: Rose Royce.
posted by planetkyoto at 1:00 AM on August 11, 2006

cadastral is correct.
posted by tellurian at 1:02 AM on August 11, 2006

If that link is suckin' for you, just type "Best of Rose Royce: Car Wash" into the music site of your choice.
posted by planetkyoto at 1:05 AM on August 11, 2006

I misread question, sorry.
posted by planetkyoto at 1:13 AM on August 11, 2006

planetkyoto, I can see how that happened. It depends on your interpretation of 'No' in 'No who sang it' = 'Know' or 'Not'.
posted by tellurian at 5:16 AM on August 11, 2006

Norman Whitfield, not Whitefield.

A great American songwriter, especially for the Motown songs he co-wrote with Barrett Strong - "I Heard it Through the Grapevine," "Ball of Confusion," "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" etc.
posted by barjo at 12:08 PM on August 11, 2006

The 'best answer' marked here is wrong.
As the cadastra link says:

Composed by: Norman Whitfield

and my linked wikipedia article says:

Norman Whitfield, a former producer for Motown Records, had been commissioned to record the soundtrack album for Car Wash by director Michael Schultz. Although Whitfield did not want to take on the project, he did so because of both the money involved and the chance to give Rose Royce, a disco/funk band who left Motown with Whitfield in 1975, the exposure they needed to break into the mainstream. Unable to come up with a theme song for the film, inspiration finally struck Whitfield while playing a game of basketball, and he wrote his first draft of "Car Wash" on a bag of fried chicken he'd bought.

posted by tellurian at 8:47 PM on September 19, 2006