“Flashlight” by Parliament

"Flash Light", or "Flashlight" as plenty of people know it, is where Parliament's Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome lands its knockout punch. The closing song on the 1977 album, it wraps up the record's comic-book saga by cornering the villainous Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk and forcing him to dance. George Clinton wrote it with Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins, and Casablanca released it as the album's second single in January 1978.

It gave the sprawling P-Funk family its first number one on the R&B chart, and Casablanca its first too, and it became Parliament's second million-seller after "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)". It hung around the pop chart for four months and even went to 3 in New Zealand.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.