"Let's Dance" | ||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Single by David Bowie | ||||||||||||||||
from the album Let's Dance | ||||||||||||||||
B-side | "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" | |||||||||||||||
Released | 17 March 1983 | |||||||||||||||
Format | ||||||||||||||||
Recorded | 1982; The Power Station (Manhattan, New York City) |
|||||||||||||||
Genre | ||||||||||||||||
Length | 4:08 | |||||||||||||||
Label | EMI – EA152 | |||||||||||||||
Writer(s) | David Bowie | |||||||||||||||
Producer(s) | Nile Rodgers | |||||||||||||||
David Bowie singles chronology | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
"Let's Dance" is the title-track from English singer David Bowie's 1983 album of the same name. It was also released as the first single from that album in 1983 and went on to become one of his biggest-selling tracks. Stevie Ray Vaughan played the guitar solo at the end of the song.
The single was one of Bowie's fastest selling, entering the UK Singles Chart at No. 5 on its first week of release, staying at the top of the charts for three weeks. Soon afterwards, the single topped the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Bowie's second and last single to reach number-one in the U.S. In Oceania, it narrowly missed topping the Australian charts, peaking at No. 2, but peaked at number-one for 4 consecutive weeks in New Zealand. The single became one of the best selling of the year across North America, Central Europe and Oceania.
The music video was made in March 1983 by David Mallet on location in Australia including a bar in Carinda in New South Wales and the Warrumbungle National Park near Coonabarabran. In the beginning it featured Bowie with a double bass player inside the one-room pub at the Carinda Hotel and an Aboriginal couple 'naturally' dancing "to the song they're playin' on the radio", the couple in this scene and in the whole video is played by Terry Roberts and Joelene King, two students from Sydney's Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre. As Bowie opted for real people, some residents of the 194-souls village of Carinda are in the pub too, watching and mocking the couple. They do not believe who David is nor what the take is all about, hence their behaviour towards the couple as seen in the video is real.
The red shoes mentioned in the song's lyrics appear in several contexts. The couple wanders solemnly through the outback with some other Aboriginals, when the young woman finds a pair of mystical red pumps on a desert mountain and instantly learns to dance. Bowie's calling 'put on your red shoes' recalls Hans Christian Andersen's tale "The Red Shoes", in which the little girl was vainly tempted to wear the shoes only to find they could not be removed, separating her from God's grace - "let's dance for fear your grace should fall" "The red shoes are a found symbol. They are the simplicity of the capitalist society and sort of striving for success - black music is all about 'Put on your red shoes'", as Bowie confirmed.