For this week, Jim is inviting us to play a song that mentions a dance style or craze, or a song that has its own dance, as you can read in his post Long and Complicated Story. As I write these before seeing his posts, and drop in the link back to his just before I publish, I have no advance idea what he will actually be saying about this, but I’m guessing that the two dances I’m featuring today will be in his list of possibilities. If so, my apologies for being obvious in my choices!
I’m going back well over sixty years for both of these, to a time when life seemed a little simpler – probably as I was only 7 or 8 when these were released and didn’t really know much about the complexities of life. But the three videos I’m playing today are all fun, and if dancing isn’t enjoyable there is no point in doing it. Here’s one you may remember, or have perhaps read about in history books:
That official video was released just over three years ago, and has more than 7.2m views. I love the way it gives instructions on how to do the dance, if you hadn’t already got the idea. Here are the lyrics:
Come on, baby Let’s do the twist Come on, baby Let’s do the twist Take me by my little hand And go like this
E-yah, twist Baby, baby, twist Ooh yeah, just like this Come on, little miss And do the twist
My daddy is sleepin’ And mama ain’t around Yeah, daddy’s just sleepin’ And mama ain’t around We’re gonna a-twist, a-twist, a-twistin’ ‘Til we tear the house down
Come on and twist Yeah, baby, twist Ooh yeah, just like this Come on, little miss And do the twist E-yah
Yeah, you should see my little sis You should see my, my little sis She really knows how to rock She knows how to twist
Come on and twist Yeah, baby, twist Ooh yeah, just like this Come on, little miss And do the twist
Yeah That’s all right Yeah, twist all night Twist (‘Round and ’round and ’round)
Maybe they aren’t deep and meaningful, but who cares? The Twist was originally the B-side of a moderate US hit for its writer, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, in 1958 but the big hit version was this one by Ernest Evans, aka Chubby Checker, which was released in June 1960 and got to #1 in the US, though it only made #44 in the UK. High society in the US caught on rather late to the dance craze, in late 1961, and this propelled the record back into the charts, making it the first single to reach #1 in the US in two separate chart runs. Chubby Checker recorded the song several times, and on the strength of this had another hit record with the dance. This one:
I like the knowing way the lyrics of that remind people that he had another hit: “Let’s Twist Again, like we did last summer.” This one was released in summer 1961, and made #8 on the Billboard chart (#3 on Cashbox), and eventually peaked at #1 in the UK in spring 1962.
As I said earlier, I was only a kid when these records were hits. We didn’t yet have a record player at home, and Top Of The Pops hadn’t reached our tv screens, so opportunities to listen to pop music were a little limited. I knew both of these from seeing them on tv and hearing them on the radio, but what really brought them home for me was a rather enlightened teacher in my primary school, who livened up our PE lessons by playing us music to dance to. She knew what she was doing: we loved those lessons, and I think they did wonders for our physical fitness.
I promised you a third video, and this is another song which had its own dance at that time. It was written by Carole King, but this is the big hit version I remember from those days:
Can you imagine a class of 8 year olds doing the equivalent of an early line dance like that, pretending to be trains? Loads of fun and laughter, accompanied by a good workout: what’s not to love? Carole King and her husband Gerry Goffin wrote The Loco-Motion hoping to have it recorded by Dee Dee Sharp, who had enjoyed a hit with Mashed Potato Time – another song with its own dance. Sharp passed on it, leaving the opportunity open for Eva Boyd, who had recorded the demo. Her version was released instead, for which her name was changed to Little Eva. How did she get the gig of recording the demo? She was Carole King’s babysitter – it’s not what you know, but who you know! The song came out as a singe in June 1962, and reached #1 in the US and #2 in the UK.
By that age I was very much into pop music, even without the assistance of one of my favourite teachers, and just hearing all three of these songs again brings back so many happy memories. I hope you’ve enjoyed them too, and will join me again for Tuesday Tunes on, er, Tuesday. Enjoy the rest of your weekend 😊
