Adrian's Top Five

Here are five songs that make me dance, despite my restrain.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling down, or I’ve had a hard day, music seems to be the only thing that improves my mood. I love all types of music. I love music so much that I even designed a listening learning experience for my students. I wanted my students to have more musical options than video games and TikTok videos.

As a kid, I spent a lot of time alone in my room, listening to the radio with a blank cassette tape in my boombox, waiting for a particular song to play so that I could press play and record at the same time. When certain songs came on the radio, I had to hear them more than once. I loved creating mixtapes: Love-song mixtapes. Angst-ridden mixtapes. Dance mixtapes. Whenever I finished a mixtape, I would proudly label it and then play the hell out of it, over and over again.

Here are five songs that when I hear them, I turn up the volume because I can’t control myself; I must dance.¹

1. Try A Little Tenderness — Otis Redding

I love Otis Redding. I can always count on his soulful voice to lift my spirits and make me feel something. Redding’s emotional delivery got me hooked into R&B and Folk music when I was a kid. I think I may have been the only 5th grader listening to soul.

As an angsty teenager, I felt closer to Duckie in Pretty in Pink than any of my actual friends in high school. I realize now that Duckie’s obsessive methods for wooing Andie are problematic. At the time, I connected with his angst, and especially his choice in music and dance moves.

Any ideas where I could find this slightly sped-up version on an Otis Redding album.

2. Beautiful Life — Ace of Base

My family knows that if they want me to get up and dance after a long day at school, all they have to do is play this 90s Swedish pop-rock hit. I’ve tried to resist, but like Kevin Kline’s character in In and Out (another great movie from my childhood), I can’t help myself. It’s better to let loose than resist the urge.

3. Twistin’ the Night Away — Sam Cooke

I admire Sam Cooke. The father of soul music, I love how he forged a link between soul and pop music, creating music that united diverse people. Music has a funny way of connecting us has human beings.

I probably fell in love with Sam Cooke around the same time I fell in love with Martin Short. Short will always be Ned Nederlander to me, dancing and making jokes about airplanes. When I watched Innerspace as a seven-year-old, I was enthralled. Science fiction. Miniaturizing ray guns. Love story. Ridiculous dancing. Count me in!

4. Trustfall — P!NK

P!NK is an incredible artist. I’ve never seen her live, but her athleticism and musicality are amazing to watch. There is one particular scene in the Trustfall music video where everyone is dancing in the street. Ryan Heffington’s choreography is tight and emotional. You should watch the music video’s behind-the-scenes to better appreciate P!NK, Heffington, and the director.

When I play this song on our daily walks around the school, I imagine that my class and I break out in a flash-mob style interpretive dance of confidence and release.

5. It’s My Life — Talk Talk

I don’t know what it is about this particular 80s Alternative Pop-Rock song, but I can’t help myself; when I hear It’s My Life, I must dance. Maybe it’s Mark Hollis’ haunting, melancholic voice? Maybe it’s Hollis’ surprising chord changes early in the song? Or maybe it’s just the fantastic build that I can’t resist (if you really want to geek out over analyzing this song, or others, check out these chord and melody metrics).

Either way, Talk Talk never received the recognition I felt they deserve. They were an fascinating band. Fun fact: the original music video showed Hollis not singing, while standing around the London Zoo. This was a statement against the clichés of lip-synching, commonly seen in the majority of 80s music videos.

This live performance in Dortmund, Germany is my favorite!

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What’s your favorite song to dance to? Let me know in the comments!

Have a great week! Try and dance a little. I promise, it helps!

— Adrian

Honorable Mention

There are just too many fun songs that I love dancing to.

Canned Heat — Jamiroquai

I was never a huge Jamiroquai fan in the late 90s. He was one of those artists that had a lot of airplay, but I never paid much attention to his him. His music was always playing in the background at every college party.

Leave it to Napoleon Dynamite to resurrect a semi-obscure song and turn it into a viral dance hit. Napoleon Dynamite is one of my favorite movies. I love this scene, and think Jon Heder’s quote about it years later, is even better.

"I always tell people: Really the Napoleon dance is just dancing from your heart. It's just like, feeling it and just letting it go. Because what it was. That's just all I did for it, was just feeling the groove." — Jon Heder

Dancing from your heart is the best kind of dancing!

Leave Before You Love Me — Marshmello x Jonas Brothers

When Leave Before You Love Me came out a few years ago, we were just out of the pandemic. I was teaching in a socially-distanced classroom and music seemed to be the only way I could connect to my students. I would play this song in class and dance between the desks (6-feet apart) trying to make my students laugh underneath their masks. Leave Before You Love Me still works to bring a smile to my face.

Come Go With Me — The Del-Vikings

I’ve been dancing to Come Go With Me since I was a kid. I remember my grandmother had a these CDs: Oldies But Goodies. I would wait until she left to go grocery shopping, crank up the volume of her dusty boombox, and dance in her living room.

Come On Eileen — Dexys Midnight Runners

I don’t own (nor have I ever owned) a pair of overalls, but when I hear this song, my teenagers know it is time for Embarrassing Dad Dance Moves. What is it about the beat of certain songs that makes my feet move? Maybe because dancing makes me happy.

1. I spent this week listening to and testing to make sure that each of these songs. I can confirm that yes, they all continue to make me want to dance.