Ain't Nobody

Wolinski wrote it and Russ Titelman produced it; it is the side-four studio track on Stompin' at the Savoy, 4:41. Our upload's version is unknown; it should be treated as the 1983 studio recording unless its title says otherwise. No recording date or studio was found. Wolinski built the song around a synth loop and a Linn LM-1 drum computer, with John Robinson on drums, and the bass synthesizer intro is in 9/8; Wikipedia gives E-flat minor at 104 beats per minute. Wolinski told the Billboard Book of Number One R&B Hits, as Songfacts quotes him, that as soon as the idea came the rest of the song fell down immediately, and that he did not want the bass to hit at the same time as the bass drum. Some band members disliked it, so the group voted to record it.

Warner decided not to release it as a single, and Wolinski reportedly said he would give it to Michael Jackson if they did not; Quincy Jones, producing Thriller, reportedly heard the demo and asked for it. Khan, in a summary of a Root interview we could not read, said nobody told her and she doubted it. The single came out on November 4, 1983, with the album date given as August 10. It reached number one on the R&B chart in October 1983, number 22 on the Hot 100, number six on the dance chart and number eight in the UK, and is certified platinum in the US and double platinum in the UK. It won the 1984 Grammy for best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocal, and Rolling Stone ranked it 403rd on its 2021 list of the 500 greatest songs. It was in the film Breakin' in 1984.

Jaki Graham covered it in 1994 (number one on the US dance club chart for five weeks), Diana King in 1995 (UK number 13) and LL Cool J interpolated it in 1997 for Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. Richard X's "Being Nobody", with Liberty X, joined it to the Human League's "Being Boiled" in 2003 (UK number three), Jasmine Thompson covered it in 2013 and Felix Jaehn's remix with her in 2015 reached number one in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Setlist.fm data on live performances was not available.