This song is not only my favorite Commodores song, even after “Machine Gun” was in “Boogie Nights,” though it’s close (and check out this sweet 1974 Soul Train clip), but it’s the only song I can sing to my 4-month-old daughter to make her quit screaming.

That’s right — she rejects Journey, REO Speedwagon, Styx and Chicago (though I think she likes Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian,” another quality “Boogie Nights” favorite), but she LOVES this song.

How did I know back in the day that it’s a song about kicking someone to the curb? All I know is that we used to couples skate to it in junior high at Golden Skate.

Gosh, I hope my kid doesn’t think I’m kicking her to the curb. Not for a few years, anyway.

Watching this video makes me re-live the trauma of realizing at a young age that Lionel Richie was betraying his brothers in the Commodores, both by leaving the band and cutting his Afro.

Those were dark days, indeed …