Safety Dance

“The writer/performer, Ivan Doroschuk, has explained that “The Safety Dance” is a protest against bouncers stopping dancers pogoing to 1980s New Wave music in clubs when Disco was dying and New Wave was up and coming. New Wave dancing, especially pogoing, was different from Disco dancing, because it was done individually instead of with partners and involved holding the torso rigid and thrashing about. To uninformed bystanders this could look dangerous, especially if pogoers accidentally bounced into one another (the more deliberately violent evolution of pogoing is slam dancing). The bouncers didn’t like pogoing so they would tell pogoers to stop or be kicked out of the club. Thus, the song is a protest and a call for freedom of expression.” (wikipedia)

Lyrics:
<blockquote>
We can dance if we want to.
We can leave your friends behind.
Cause your friends don’t dance,
and if they don’t dance, well they’re
no friends of mine.

Say, we can go where we want to.
A place where they will never find.
And we can act like we come from out of this world.
Leave the real one far behind.

We can dance.

We can go when we want to.
Night is young and so am I.
And we can dress real neat
from our hands to our feet
and surprise ‘em with a victory cry.

Say, we can act if we want to.
If we don’t nobody will.
And you can act real rude,
and totally removed and I can act like an imbecile.

We can dance.
We can dance.
Everything’s under control.

We can dance.
We can dance.
Doing it from pole to pole.

We can dance.
We can dance.
Everybody look at your hands.

We can dance.
We can dance.
Everybody’s takin’ the cha-a-ance.

Safety Dance.
Oh, it’s safe to dance.
Yes, it’s safe to dance.

We can dance if we want to.
We’ve got all your life, and mine.
As long as we abuse it,
Never gonna lose it.
Everything will work out right.

Say, we can dance if we want to.
We can leave your friends behind.
Because your friends don’t dance,
and if they don’t dance, well they’re
no friends of mine.

I say, we can dance.
We can dance.
Everything’s under control.

We can dance.
We can dance.
Doin’ it from pole to pole.

We can dance.
We can dance.
Everybody look at your hands.

We can dance.
We can dance.
Everybody’s takin’ the cha-a-ance.

Safety Dance.
Yes Safety Dance.
Safety Dance.
Let’s Safety Dance.
Yes, Safety Dance.
Safety Dance.
Let’s Safety Dance.

Safety Dance…
Safety Dance…
Safety Dance…
Safety Dance
(source)
</blockquote>

(Just a song from the 80s that comes into my head occasionally. And now Wikipedia explains what it all meant; things we’d always assumed never had to make sense suddenly turn out to be perfectly rational.)

This post was originally on LiveJournal.