Greatest Dance Songs of All Time

I love to dance.  And I actually think I’m pretty good at it, which is odd given that I have no athletic ability whatsoever.  Put me on a basketball court and I’m useless.  Put me on a dance floor and watch out, baby. 

I remember the very first time that I cut loose on a dance floor.  I was a senior in high school with a well-earned reputation for being an academic geek with little to no social skills.  I was in in love with the TV show “Miami Vice” and so I showed up at the Notre Dame High School (all boys, Catholic) mixer dressed in my white pants with a pastel-colored shirt and gay little espadrille-like shoes with no socks.  (Of all the things I have shared on my blog, THIS may be the most painful revelation of them all.) 

I was doing my usual fine job of holding up the wall with my ass when they played “You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party” by The Beastie Boys.  For some strange reason, this song took a hold of me and I suddenly found myself  in the middle of the dance floor, hurling myself around like a madman.  It was the dance-floor equivalent of a devout Hindu walking into a McDonald’s and asking for a Big Mac with extra meat.  A friend of mine came rushing over to me.  “Are you drunk?” she screeched.  She certainly was, but I was drunk on the music, man.  From that day on, I was a dancing fool.

In college, I probably spent more time on the dance floor than I did in the library.  The Thursday night dance party at Toad’s Place in New Haven , having was the best.  Twenty-five-cent drafts, a fog machine, a humongous dance floor, and a curious mix of “town and gown” (meaning fancy-pants Yale students and local residents of New Haven, a fairly rough-and-tumble city; I was both a Yalie and a townie, having grown up 15 minutes down the road in Milford).  My friend Sarah and I took it upon ourselves to always be the first two people out on the dance floor — a tradition we proudly upheld at our 15th reunion a few years ago, I might add. 

All this by way of saying that when I present my list of the Greatest Dance Songs of All Time, I know what the hell I’m talking about.  So here we go, my top six, in reverse order…

6. “Crazy in Love,” Beyonce — Holy shit, I love this song.  That driving backbeat is just fabulous and when Jay-Z jumps in and starts rapping about chinchilla and Van Exel it’s just off da’ hook.

5. “Secret Rendezvous,” Karyn White — You may not know or remember this one, but it kicks ass.  The opening lyrics alone are enough to get you in the mood for some serious dancing: “Happiness is when I, I think of you/And we’ll be gettin’ together for a rendezvous/I’ll be on time, you bring the wine/And when we lock the door, you’ll be all mine.”  Ooh, yeah.

4. “Got to Get,” Leila K — You probably don’t know this one either, loser, but the first time I heard this song on the radio, I literally stopped what I was doing, went out to the record store, and bought the cassette single.  I brought it with me on Spring Break that year and played it about 48,000 times in the span of a week.  Leila K is backed up on this track by Rob and Raz, who I believe are rap producers.  In college, my roommate ,Peter, nicknamed his testicles Rob and Raz, but I digress.

3. “Bust a Move,” Young MC –  This song is four-and-a-half minutes of sheer dance genius.  It has a wonderful beat, of course, but the lyrics are sharp, too.  Peter (he of the above-mentioned testicles) was famous for lip-synching to this song while on the dance floor, especially the line, “She’s dressed in yellow/She says hello/Come sit next to me, you fine fellow.”

2. “Like a Prayer,” Madonna — From the opening, “God?” to the end when the gospel choir is whooping and hollering for the Dance Gods to rapture them up to Heaven, this song is pure magic.  I have especially fond feelings for this song because it sends my buddy, Liam, into a hypnotic trance in which he literally loses control of his body.  Not that long ago, Liam got out onto the dance floor for this song and eventually some people came over to him and said, “Do you know you’re bleeding?”  He did not, but he had, in fact, sliced his leg open dropping down to his knees to worship before Madonna.  I can’t say as I blame him.

1. “It Takes Two,” Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock — This is not only the greatest DANCE song of all time by a considerable margin, it may very well be the greatest song of all time PERIOD.  The “Whao/Yeah” that plays throughout this song has been copied so many times now that it’s easy to forget just how mind-bendingly original it was in 1988, when this song first came out.  It is simply perfect.

So there you have ‘em.  My picks for the six greatest dance songs of all time.  Agree?  Disagree?  Which ones did I miss, dear reader?  Let me know.

Pillow Talk

I’ve written before about how much I cherish the time I get to spend with my children now that I live apart from them.  Lately, my son Christian (who turns three next week) has been waking up at my apartment at an ungodly hour in the morning.  He and his sister sleep in bunkbeds, so when he calls out “Daddy!” at 6:00 a.m. (so cool that the first word he utters when he wakes up is my name), I swoop in quickly to bring him into my bed.  Ideally, he would go back to sleep, but he almost never does and what happens instead is, I suppose, even better than sleep.  Because what happens is that we talk to each other.  We are both in that slightly dreamy state between being fully asleep and fully awake, so the conversation isn’t terribly profound.  But it is incredibly intimate and beautiful. 

For starters, Christian typically asks for some milk — which he calls “milky” and pronounces “mil-al-kee.”  Christian used to go to sleep drinking his milky, but the dentist warned us that his teeth would rot out of his head.  (They’re baby teeth, dude, chill, but OK.)  Once his milky has been presented to him, Christian will begin his commentary.  Sometimes he’ll talk about a dream that he just had.  Sometimes he’ll offer a comment about something that happened the previous day or even longer ago than that.  Sometimes he’ll just ask me to turn on the ceiling fan that hovers over my bed — a source of never-ending wonderment for him.  When he takes a break to suck down some milky, I’ll usually ask him some questions that he answers with a very brief, efficient shake of his head yes or no.  “Are you my big boy?”  Shake of the head yes.  “Do you love your Daddy?”  Shake of the head yes.  “Is your heini on fire?”  Shake of the head no and a little laugh, the bubbles in his milky popping to the surface as his lips break their death-grip seal on the sippy cup.

All this time, our faces are separated by about six inches.  Christian is a very handsome boy, but up close he is simply beautiful — his eyes, his eyelashes, his cheeks, his nose, his hair, his ears.  They are all perfect, he is perfect. 

Eventually, the sun rises, Christian’s big sister awakes, and another day begins.  But the time my son and I spend together before all that — before the great wide world comes rushing in — is magical and something I always will remember and treasure.