Let’s Dance
I am so old that the Top 40 of my youth includes new songs by Elvis, Perry Como and The Carpenters: “When I was young I’d listen to the radio, waiting for my favourite song. When it played, I’d sing along.”
David Bowie doesn’t seem very happy about it, but suggests, “Let's dance. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues. Let's dance to the song they're playin' on the radio.” And then there’s empty rooms and fear and trembling flowers and the serious moonlight.
I recalled 70s pop as more upbeat than Stevie Wonder’s “So boogie on reggae woman. What is wrong with you? Boogie on reggae woman.What you tryin’ to do?” I believe she is dancing, as you have advised her to do.
Here’s another cheery upbeat song for your weekend of youthful fun: “Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody. I’ve got some money cause I just got paid. Now how I wish I had someone to talk to, I’m in an awful way.
“Another fella told me he had a sister who looked just fine. Instead of bein’ my deliverance, she had a strange resemblance to a cat named Frankenstein.”
Maybe Cat Stevens was talking about Janis Ian? “I learned the truth at seventeen, that love was meant for beauty queens. And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles who married young and then retired.
“The valentines I never knew, the Friday night charades of youth, were spent on one more beautiful. At seventeen I learned the truth. And those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces, desperately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone who called to say, ‘Come dance with me,’ and murmured vague obscenities. It isn't all it seems, at seventeen.” Well, boy howdy! -- that’s depressing.
Here’s a favourite Top 40 radio sing-along song. Try for a twangy/whiny tone and harmonize with your girlfriends for the chorus: “I realized the way your eyes deceived me, with tender looks that I mistook for love. So take away the flowers that you gave me, and send the kind that you remind me of.... Paper Roses! Paper Roses! Oh how real those roses seemed to be. But they're only imitation, like your im-i-ta-tion love for meeeeeeee.” Poor Marie Osmond!
Now, these days we would call this a Dysfunctional Relationship: “Don't ya love her madly, don't ya need her badly, don't ya love her ways. Tell me what you say. Don't ya love her madly, wanna be her daddy? Don't ya love her face, don't ya love her as she's walkin' out the door. Like she did one thousand times before.” Although The Doors may not have known it at the time, it likely was a floral issue -- trembling, possibly, or cellulose-based.
Now, this one was really fun to dance to, especially if you didn’t have a clue what the lyrics were. Thank goodness for Chrissie Hynde. “Got in the house like a pigeon from hell, oh oh oh oh. Threw sand in our eyes and descended like flies. Put us back on the train. Oh, back on the chain gang.
“The powers that be that force us to live like we do, bring me to my knees when I see what they’ve done to you. Knowing that deep in my heart, they’ll
fall to ruin one day for making us part. I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh. Those were the happiest days of my life, like a break in the battle was your part, oh oh oh oh. In the wretched life of a lonely heart.” Woomp, ha!
And to end the 70s on an upbeat, here’s Marianne Faithfull’s sweet tune. “Lose your father, your husband, your mother, your children. What are you dying for ? It’s not my reality. It’s just an old war, not even a cold war. Don’t say it in Russian, don’t say it in German. Say it in broken English. Say it in broken English.”
Oh, what the heck. Forget about the lyrics, lighten up and let’s dance! Take it, KC!
Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight baby.
Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight baby.
Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight baby.
Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight baby.
Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight baby.
Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight baby.
Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight baby.
Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight baby.
Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight baby.
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