He had a flush of ideas.
Lionel Richie revealed Thursday that he wrote the second verse of his hit “Lady” while sitting on the bathroom.
Richie, 73, made the unsanitary claim while appearing on “The Drew Barrymore Show.”
“It’s quite simple. I’m working with Kenny Rogers — that is back within the day — and so Kenny calls and says, ‘I would like you to put in writing a song for me,’” explained Richie. “And, in fact, I wrote ‘Lady.’”
The “American Idol” judge also asked him to put in writing a second song, which later became “Goin’ Back to Alabama,” and would later appear on the late country star’s 1981 album “Share Your Love.”
Richie revealed that the duo was halfway through writing the song when Rogers decided to alter his tune.
“He says, ‘I don’t need to sing that song. I believe I would like to do ‘Lady’ first,’” recalled the “Easy” singer. “Now, what he didn’t know was I only had written the primary verse of ‘Lady.’”
Richie then asked for a moment so he could flush out the remainder of the song.
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“I said, ‘Excuse me for a minute. Let me, uh, go to the toilet,’” said Richie. “I’m sitting within the stall writing the second verse to ‘Lady.’”
Barrymore noted that she was super impressed with the musician being about to push out a “hit juggernaut classic” in such a brief time-frame.
“You’ll do some amazing things if you’re scared to death,” said Richie. “The thought of telling Mr. Rogers that I don’t have the second verse was not going to occur in my lifetime.”
Rogers, who died in 2020, once joked in a 2014 “Today” show interview that Richie “doesn’t write entire songs, he writes ideas.”
He also said Richie could have written “Lady” on toilet paper while in the boys’s room.
“We were within the studio recording the song, and I said, ‘Where’s the second verse?’ They usually said, ‘Lionel’s in the bathroom writing them without delay,’” said the late country star. “He can’t write unless he has the pressure to put in writing.”
“He went in there to kinda get away from all the pieces and to focus,” laughed Rogers.
