Gino Soccio: Dancer

Remarks:

Till the other day I had always assumed this song was a big hit in the US – but in 1979 it only made it to #48 on the pop chart and #60 on the R&B chart. How could I be so wrong?

The answer: New York Bubble. I mainly listened to WABC-AM back then. It was a Top 40 Radio station, meaning that it played the top 40 pop songs in the US. So far so good. But disco was so big in New York that it had to play disco or die. It had lost a quarter of its audience, nearly a million listeners, mainly to WKTU-FM, an upstart disco station.

This song never reached the national Top 40, but it was #1 on the disco chart for six weeks! WABC could not not play it.

But WABC’s troubles as a music radio station ran much deeper: it had risen on the back of the transistor AM radio and so it would fall.

See also:

• songs: the 1970s
  • Arpeggio: Love and Desire – another disco song that never made the top 40.
• Time Warp Radio: 1979
• My 1970s media diet
• R&B: a brief history: 1975-1979

Lyrics:

Dancer
Dancer
Dancer
Dancer

Dancer, let your body free now
Dancer, if you want to feel good
Dancer, got to get a move on
Dancer, try to take it higher

Dancer
Dancer, try to take it higher
Dancer
Dancer, try to take it higher

You never knew the power of your body
Ahaha, ha
But when you keep on dancing to the music
You reach up high into the sky!

Dancer, got to get a move on
Dancer, if you want to feel good
Dancer, keep your body shaking
Dancer, try to take it higher

Dancer
Dancer
Dancer
Dancer, try to take it higher

You never knew the power of your body
Ahaha, ha
But when you keep on dancing to the music
You reach up high into the sky!

Oho
You, you’re such a dancer, you’re
Heyeyeyeyey

Must we dance again
Oho!
Keep your body shaking
Ooohooo

Keep your body shaking

Keep your body shaking, yeaheah
Keep your body shaking, ohoho!
Keep your body shaking

Keep your body shaking
Keep your body shaking
Keep your body shaking
Keep your body shaking

Keep your body shaking
Keep your body shaking

Dancer, got to get a move on
Dancer, if you want to feel good
Dancer, keep your body shaking
Dancer, got to take it higher

Dancer, let your body free now
Dancer, if you want to feel good
Dancer, got to get a move on
Dancer, try to take it higher

Dancer (Get to the floor, see if you can lift me higher)
Dancer, try to take it higher
(Keep your head up high, give yourself some body hungry)
Dancer, try to take it higher

Dancer (Get it up!
Get it up!
Get it up!
Get it up!)

(Get it up!
Get it up!
Get it up!
Get it up!)

Source: Letras.mus.br