Two weeks ago my music blog featured songs with the word Dance in the title, with David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” as its inspiration.  Today’s blog will somewhat expand on the theme with Dancing Songs.  After releasing my Dance blog, I received several suggestions of Dancing songs to add to the playlist, though I deferred adding, as the songs were already part of this planned playlist of Dancing songs.  So for those who suggested those Dancing songs, here they are.

In addition to the title song by the Kinks, some favorites include Van Halen’s or Martha & The Vandellas “Dancing In The Streets,” Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself,” Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark,” King Harvest’s “Dancing In The Moonlight.”  Then there’s a little disco flurry with Leo Sayer’s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” which I thought for the longest time was sung by the Bee Gees.  There are some great compilation videos on YouTube.  This first one with old school dance scenes featuring the likes of Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Shirley Temple:

And another featuring more recent famous movie and TV show scenes, created as a class project:

The Bee Gees are included with “You Should Be Dancing” made famous by John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”:

With younger brother Andy’s “Shadow Dancing”:

And Abba’s “Dancing Queen” getting a whole Greek village dancing in “Mamma Mia”:

Then there’s Pet Shop Boys’ “Domino Dancing” that I first heard in Macy’s cool teen floor in NYC in the 80’s.  Filmed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the video is hot in more ways than one:

And before his tenure as American Idol judge, Lionel Richie was “Dancing On The Ceiling”:

Which reminds me of the old Fred Astaire dance scene from “Royal Wedding”, some 35 years before Lionel, in 1951:

I love that the YouTube poster clarifies “Of course Fred Astaire doesn’t really dance on the walls and ceiling.  The entire set rotated as Fred danced…”

Echo & The Bunnymen’s “Bring On The Dancing Horses” was made famous in John Hughes’ third Molly Ringwald feature “Pretty In Pink,” following “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club.”  Other great songs appearing on that soundtrack, which I still own in vinyl, include The Psychedelic Furs title song, as well as Suzanne Vega’s “Left Of Center,” Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark (OMD)’s “If You Leave” Danny Hutton, of Three Dog Night Fame, with “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and The Smiths “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want,” among others, mostly songs of teen angst.  Also in the movie is one of my favorite musical scenes, one which turned me on to Otis Redding – who can forget Duckie dancing for all he’s worth to Otis’ “Try A Little Tenderness” – so great:

And while having no songs on the playlist, it’s hard to think about Dancing songs without images of several scenes from “Dirty Dancing” coming to mind,:

“Hey Baby” with Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Gray dancing on a log:

“Wipeout” with iconic scene with Jennifer Gray dancing on the bridge:

“Love Is Strange” lip synching to Mickey & Sylvia:

And of course, the finale scene “(I Had) The Time Of My Life”:

Interestingly, I stumbled upon their screen test for the movie, which is equally beautiful:

In a similar vein, “Footloose” conjures up some great dancing memories as well, with teens bringing dancing to their conservative town:

Going a little further back, who can forget Jennifer Beals (actually Irene Cara) in “Flashdance” thrilling her audience with her steal the show dancing scene with “Maniac”:

Then her final dance scene, with “What A Feeling”:

And scenes from the movie, definitely worth a watch for some early 80’s schmaltz:

And while featured in my Dance song blog “DANCE With Me,” this video compilation of famous movie dance scenes is too good to leave off:

So on to the playlist.  I think you’ll enjoy it.  Lots of great Dancing songs to tap your feet to:

I hope that this music and my blog truly serve as a “revival: a new presentation of something old,” a springboard to return to the music of your youth, or perhaps to find artists you want to discover anew.  Rediscover the passion of music in your life.

Live in the moment.

Enjoy the moment.

Love the moment.

Listen (Dancing) to the MUSIC!