Three Times a Lady

"Three Times a Lady" is a 1978 single from the funk/soul band the Commodores, from their 1978 album Natural High. It was produced by James Anthony Carmichael and the Commodores and it was the most popular track of the album.

In an appearance on The Early Show on June 12, 2009, Richie said the writer was inspired to write it by a comment his father made about his mother. Reportedly his father said to his mother "I love you. I want you. I need you. Forever" hence the three times^[1] It became the Commodores's first Billboard Hot 100 number-one hit, topping the chart for two weeks on August 12, 1978.^[2] It was also the only Motown song to reach the Top 10 that year. The song also spent three weeks at #1 on the adult contemporary chart. It was one of only a few Motown singles to reach the top spot in the UK Singles Chart, staying there for 5 weeks. In the years since the Commodores had started in 1974 it has been one of their most emotional songs since "You Don't Know That I Know" from the album Caught in the Act in 1975.

The original Commodores' version of the song was included as the final track on Lionel Richie's greatest hits compilation album Back To Front, released in 1992.

Covers and parodies

• The song was also covered in the country genre by country singer Billy "Crash" Craddock on his 1986 album Crash Craddock and in 2007 by Cobra Starship as an iTunes bonus track for their album ¡Viva La Cobra!. In 2001 it was covered by Anglo-Norwegian boy band a1 and featured on Motown Mania and as a bonus track on their hit single "No More".

• The Shadows did an instrumental of the song on Moonlight Shadows (1986).

• Kenny Rogers covered the song on After Dark. It was also featured on his hits compilation All The Hits And All New Love Songs. Kenny performed the song on the Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters television show on November 29th, 19080.

• The most successful cover version was performed by Conway Twitty, whose version appears on his 1983 album Lost in the Feeling Twitty's version reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in the late winter of 1984. Allmusic reviewer Tom Jurek wrote that "Three Times a Lady" and the previous single, "Heartache Tonight" "offer(ed) a solid view of Twitty's amazing crossover potential, and his ability to take well-known pop tracks and turn them into solid country smashes long after the countrypolitan days of Chet Atkins and RCA."^[3] (In addition to "Heartache Tonight" (a cover of a song by The Eagles), Twitty had successfully covered "Slow Hand" and "The Rose," previously pop hits for the Pointer Sisters and Bette Midler, respectively.)

• In the movie Garden State, the song is performed at a funeral by actress Jackie Hoffman.

• Comedian Bill Bailey performed a German translation of the song in his Part Troll set. According to Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills, the song is about Richie professing his love for fat women.^[4]

• The chorus of the song was parodied on Saturday Night Live. Eddie Murphy, in the Buckwheat persona, would use numeric hand gestures and yell, "Unce! Tice! Fee tines a mady!"

• In an episode of Seinfeld, Newman sings part of this song, while his mail truck catches fire.

• Was used twice in The Sopranos episode, "The Test Dream", first when sung by Finn DeTrolio's father and again as the end credits rolled. John Heard played Finn's father in "The Test Dream" as well as the crooked cop Vin Makazian in the earlier episodes "Meadowlands", "Pax Soprana", and "Boca", who committed suicide in "Nobody Knows Anything").

References

See also

• Hot 100 number-one hits of 1978 (United States)