Deadsplinter Up! All Night: Dance Dance Revolution

It's Mashed Potato Time!

Land of 1000 Dances

According to musicologists, the purpose of music can be distilled to a number of categories. There’s praise and exhortation, celebration, lament, romantic love (read: “sex”), religious worship, preparation for battle, and finally, the wiggling of what your daddy gave you.

It is the last category that we celebrate tonight. Songs about dance, songs involving dance, dance instruction or simply moving that thing up and back. Maybe just songs with “dance” in the title.

I’m a big believer in dancing as self-care. And lord have mercy, we could all use a little of that right now. Even if you aren’t physically able, there is an energy inside us (the Chinese call it “Qi”) that can be moved around in the body and even extended beyond our anatomical boundaries. If all you can do is lay in one spot, move your Qi thang baby, ’cause it will do you good. I’m not joking. This I believe. So you don’t have to pony like Boney Maronie, but you do have to let the music move you, groove you, and behoove you.

More songs about dancing. Songs that talk about dancing, tell you how to do a dance, or simply describe a dance, whether alone, with a loved one, or making a complete fool of myself like an old white man doing the Soulja Boy at a South Side wedding (guilty). Songs that give detailed instructions on the performance of the new dance sensation sweeping the nation, because let’s face it, not all of us are born knowing how to both whip as well as nae nae, much less stanky leg.

I’m an especially big proponent of the line dance. That thrilling tribal experience that really kicks shit into high gear, you feel me? Watching people in Atlanta doing the cha cha slide while waiting in line for early voting a few months ago was one of the most life-affirming things I’ve seen in ages.

Rest assured, y’all. When we gather at the annual Deadsplinter Convention this year at the Days Inn in Ft Wayne, Indiana, I will be leading the group in some Madison Time. I’m especially keen to see @LemmyKilmister going two up and two back in full leathers and metal regalia. What a glorious day that will be.

So come on, let’s pony up our tributes to Terpsichore and stop monkeying around. Put your hand on your hip and let your backbone slip. Lean back, get low. Make it clap. Shake it, but for god’s sake, don’t break it. And in the words of my personal fashion icon, Wayne Cochran, “Move it to the Left, and Thank you for supporting Deadsplinter and DUAN.

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42 Comments

  1. oh hey come to think of it…i forgot the dance of the nineties 


    or if you prefer…the slightly less radio friendly version that was really quite popular in the clubs here for a little while

            • This is really a propos of nothing but I mentioned as an aside in a FYCE post that I can get my dog to mambo with me. Yes. The conditions have to be ideal. Just the two of us. I’m cooking something and it’s passive time. When I cook he’s always right by my side. I take a step forward and he takes a step back. Then I take a step back and he takes a step forward. We do this a few times and I turn my back to him and then face him. He gets so worked up by this he will spin around. I bet quite a few dogs would do this, if their humans were crazy enough to think of it.

  2. Oh, this is a great thread. 
     
    The Watusi:
     


     
    The Mashed Potato:
     

     
    Here’s Mama Cass doing The Mashed Potato starting at 1:14. There’s a video of them performing this where she basically does it the entire time but I can’t find it. I love this video because it sums up the hope and optimism of Southern California in 1960s (unless you lived in Watts.) The Better Half and I would love to retire to Southern California. The only people more horrified by this sentiment than our fellow New Yorkers are residents of The Bay Area:
     

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