Maniac

Oh my, Mr. Sembello is taking time to write here!!!! Amazing, love your work, specially your contribution to Songs In The Key Of Life. Seeing the Classic Albums program about this record lets us see your amazing talent, thanks for your work!!

awesome..and tommy boy is the best movie ever!!

Good song and I enjoy you always.

The 2007 Kia Commercial...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOyQK5jBalE
Great Song Michael! (absurd commercial)

Not to correct the songwriter, but I don't think the song was disqualified from competition. If so, the song would not be on the Academy's Web site as a nominee. A famous example of a nominee being disqualified is Nino Rota's score for "The Godfather." If you look at the nominees for Original Score in 1972, you will see the asterisk explaining this. In the original song nominees for 1983, "Maniac" is listed as a nominee. So, Mr. Sembello, you can stop being pissed off. Your song was eligible.

Here's the link to the info on "The Godfather": http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1193789015248

And here's the list of Original Song nominees for 1983: http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1193789119251

Chris Farley sang this while getting hosed off at a gas station in "Tommy Boy."

Really awesome song! It is obvious that sembello adjusted the lyrics, in order to fit with the Flashdance's theme (hey the movie has to do with dance, not with a serial killer). So,"a steel town girl" may had replaced "a small town girl" and "she's a maniac on the floor" with something else hehehe ^^

An exciting, pulsing song that still sounds terrific today. Its association with 'Flashdance' always kind of ruined it for me, though.

If you've ever seen someone dancing who's never danced before, you'd realize that the lyrics are mocking the subject of the song, not praising her. ;-)

A 1990's remix by, if my memory serves me right, Memory of Sound, of this track was often played live by an Irish club DJ, Mark McCabe, who took to MC'ing over it, a recording of which spent nearly the entire summer of 2000 at the top of the Irish charts.

However, for whatever reason, it was never sold outside of Ireland. But it did bring Sembello's original music back onto the radio for quite a while afterwhile

In the '70s, Michael Sembello was a popular studio session guitarist. He played guitar on Stevie Wonder's legendary album, "Songs in the Key of Life."

In the '70s, Michael Sembello was a popular studio session guitarist. He played guitar on Stevie Wonder's legendary album, "Songs in the Keys of Life."

Also used in American Wedding-Michael

sorry to be a pest but this part of the lyric is wrong on your site:

She's a maniac, maniac, I sure know
And she's dancing like she's never danced before
She's a maniac, maniac, I sure know
And she's dancing like she's never danced before

it is just the same as the first chorus:

She's a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she's dancing like she's never danced before
She's a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she's dancing like she's never danced before

Thanks, Michael Sembello

This is Michael Sembello Artist and co-writter of maniac. I love your site very much but some of the facts are wrong and i would like to update you if you don't mind and add some you don't know about,most important is the fact that partner and co-writter of the song dennis matkosky saw the lustig movie(not chain saw massacre)
and he came up with the original kernal of inpiration and to me with the basic idea and groove and i believe the temporary lyrics for the chorus he had were:

" He's a maniac,maniac that's for sure
He will kill your cat and nail him to the door"
Which that direction obviously wasn't going to work at which point the genius of phil ramone producer of the soundtrack who had the vision to see the potential of the song asked us to change it to the present concept of a girl possesed with the passion of a gift for dance,without phil it would not have happened.

another fact is it was nominated for an academy award and was disqualified according to
"academy rules" because the song was changed from the original and was not originally written soley for the film,which pisses me off to this day.
So thats the whole truth,and the rest of the story.Glad to be of help-Michael sembello

Sung by Groundskeeper Willie in the Simpsons

Rumour has it that the song was originally intended for the William Lustig film Maniac (1980), one of the more notorious "video-nasty" titles that were the subject of a media frenzy in the early 1980s. However the song was rejected in the end and wound up in Flashdance with largely re-written lyrics.

Appeared in Season 1 Episode 23 of Cold Case on CBS. The name of the episode is "Lover's Lane."