A Dancing Queen no longer: ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by The Bee Gees, 1977

We’re at the Grosvenor House for the 1977 Ivor Novello Music Industry Awards.  Cliff Richard stands before a hushed and expectant audience as he announces “This year’s award for Absurd Lyrical Gibberish goes to… The Bee Gees, for ‘Staying Alive’!”  As the Gibb brothers walk proudly to the stage to collect their prize, the opening lines of their disco classic ring out across the ballroom: ‘Well you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk’.  Sure enough, The Bee Gees are deserving winners.

The lyrics may be Gibberish, but ‘Staying Alive’ represents a significant moment in my relationship with music.

I used to like dancing but, amongst my peer group, I was something of an exception.  For blokes, doing anything on a dance floor other than heavy metal-style ‘head banging’, fist pumping or air guitar playing was frankly regarded as a bit ‘girly’, at least in 1970s suburban south London. Much as I would have preferred to freestyle to soul or funk, I used to limit myself to a bit of collective rocking to avoid seeming ‘suspect’.  All that changed in 1977 with the release of the film Saturday Night Fever.  Its star, John Travolta, made it cool for men to dance.  He may have been prancing around on an illuminated dance floor, throwing dodgy disco moves in a white suit, but he was tough and a babe magnet.  His was less a ‘walk’, more of a dude strut; he was unquestionably ‘a woman’s man’, even if this was usually manifest on the stained leatherette of his automobile’s back seat; and as for his time-restricted speech, it is true that conversation was not his strong suit. But since when was sparkling repartee a prerequisite for being COOL?

I read an article about Travolta just as the film was about to be released, in which he explained how he created the look, the walk and the attitude of Tony Manero, the ‘hero’ of the movie.  I was particularly struck by the revelation of his discovery that opening his jaw slightly while keeping his lips together made his cheekbones look more chiseled, his jaw line firmer and his lips slightly fuller.  It’s a top tip I’ve never forgotten…

The public flocked to the movie in droves.  It was an X certificate (‘18’ in today’s money), so I blagged my way in with my older brother Peter.  In subsequent years, I recalled the film as being really cheesy but, watching it again a little while back, I found my memory deceived me and that it is anything but.  Saturday Night Fever is a serious and surprisingly gritty story about a lad from a dysfunctional working class immigrant family who tries to find his identity and self respect in the burgeoning New York disco scene.  There is no romance or sentimentality – ‘Dirty Dancing’ it most certainly is not.   What I do remember clearly is the impact the film had on me as I sat watching in the Odeon Wimbledon.  I could feel a wave of joy wash over me as I realised that, after this, I would never have to feel self-conscious about dancing again.  Key to this personal impact was my implicit understanding of the film’s social impact.   Travolta had done a huge favour to all young men with an unruly dance gene.  The world now understood dancing could get you girls and, perhaps more importantly, it could win you the respect of other men.

All over the country, people wanted to learn to dance like Travolta and straight men began to strut their stuff on the dance floor with pride.  My mates and I started to frequent such glamorous venues as the Garth School Disco and even The Cat’s Whiskas in Streatham, and I hit the dance floor with a new confidence.

Dancing has been very important to me ever since.  As someone who thinks for a living and cogitates for leisure, dancing is invaluable as a visceral and explicitly non-intellectual departure from ‘normal’ life.  Places as apparently diverse as a club dance floor and a wind-battered mountain peak are for me united in their ability to touch a part of my soul that doesn’t get out much.  I can trace a line of dance floor joy that started at Saturday Night Fever and moved on through: 18^th birthday parties; Heaven and the Camden Palace; learning, teaching and performing Ceroc (French Rock n Roll); office parties, Subterranea; Ibiza; to my 50^th birthday party.  That line now spends most of its time meandering around my kitchen floor.

In the gay club, Heaven, in the 80s, people would ask if I had any more of the substances they assumed were giving me the energy to keep dancing for hours on end.  I remember feeling slightly bemused: dance music was the only drug I needed.  However, sometimes I struggled to keep the pace.  At the Camden Palace I would take a time out, snatching 40 winks on a banquette so that I could return refreshed to the dance floor an hour later.  Getting home at 4 in the morning on a ‘school day’ was a little tricky: on a Wednesday at work, having left Heaven’s ‘straight night’ in the early hours of that morning, I would usually sneak into a loo cubicle for quick kip when I could no longer stay awake at my desk.

Sadly, few of my friends have shared my manic enthusiasm for dancing.  Some nights in the 80s saw me going out clubbing on my own, so desperate was I for the energy of a the dance floor.  I love clubs.  Quite apart from the music and atmosphere, they are great places for people watching.  There’s a large part of me that wishes it could have lived the hedonistic club life.  However, if truth be told, I don’t think it would have satisfied.  For a few months in the late 80s I touched down on Planet Dance where the Clubbers lived, but my initial interest soon wore off as I found the natives friendly but disappointingly superficial.  I’m certain that a passion for clubs and dancing need not preclude an interest in the wider world and the ability to think about it, but I have rarely found these diverse concerns happily coexisting.

Much to the embarrassment of my family, I have no plans to stop dancing.  I might even learn something new – Tango classes in Buenos Aires appeal.  So, as long as my rebuilt knees can stand the strain, I will be following Brucie and Tess’s entreaty to ‘Keeeeep dancing!’  However, I must go now: the glitter ball and smoke machine sitting on the kitchen table won’t install themselves, you know.

* IMPORTANT NOTE: if you want to listen to any of the songs that are hyperlinked in this and other blogs, they are stored in a DropBox folder that you can only access if you have DropBox account.  Getting one couldn’t be easier.  Just go to https://www.dropbox.com/ and download the software.  It’s free and you get 2GB of online storage for free.