People have not been shy about sharing their opinions on the new version of the Ghostbusters theme song by Fall Out Boy (featuring Missy Elliott), and they seem to range somewhere between “Well…it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard” to “This is the end of civilization and I’m very glad for that.”

So we’ll just call reactions mixed.

However, one person, for whom the iconic theme means a whole lot more than for any us, decided to take a far more diplomatic approach when asked about it. Because who else would you call when talking the Ghostbusters theme song but the man who wrote and performed the Grammy winning original, Ray Parker Jr.

“I’m not gonna say whether it’s good or bad. I’m just gonna say maybe I’m an old guy now and I like it the old way,” he told Inside Edition. So although he didn’t explicitly give his opinion, those lines aren’t exactly impossible to read between. He just clearly didn’t want to join the chorus of people who really, really don’t like the new version.

In the interview, that we first came across at EW, Parker also said he wished he had been called to help out with the “younger guys” so he could have helped “get them a direction.” We wish so too…

While he was very careful with his words about the song, he didn’t mince them when asked about the backlash against rebooting the franchise with all women. “Look at all the excitement that it’s generated this year,” he said, calling this new take a “natural progression.”

Parker Jr. also said, before playing his version on an acoustic guitar, that the 1984 theme almost never really existed, at least not the way we know it. Apparently it was just supposed to be 25 seconds long, but after director Ivan Reitman heard it he said he wanted a full song, so some splicing later, 25 seconds became four minutes of cinematic music history.

If they make a sequel to this new Ghostbusters, we have a suggestion on who they should call to work on that theme song.

How do you think the new version compares (or doesn’t) to the old one? Tell us in the comments below.

Image: Inside Edition