"Dancing Girls" is a song by the English singer-songwriter Nik Kershaw. It was the third single from his debut studio album, Human Racing, and released on 2 April 1984.[1] It charted on 14 April 1984, and reaching a peak position of No. 13 in the UK Singles Chart. It stayed on the charts for nine weeks.[2]
Music and lyrics
Kershaw explained the song to Number One magazine in September 1984:[3]
"Dancing Girls" is about a bloke a bit down on his luck. He's got a job and everything but he's bored sick with the routine of getting up, going to work, coming home, watching the telly, going to bed ... in the end he's saying, "For God's sake, bring on the dancing girls! Let something exciting happen to me for a change." But again the idea was exaggerated.
In a 2012 podcast interview with Sodajerker, Kershaw remembers writing the bassline spontaneously on a Roland Juno-6 synthesizer, using the arpeggiator function, and programming a rhythm on a Roland TR-808 drum machine – it was to this musical basis that the lyrics would be written.[4]
Music video
The external street scenes for the music video for "Dancing Girls" were filmed in the dead-end section of Woodberry Grove, Finchley, North London.[3] It depicted Kershaw as the subject of the song's lyrics, an advertising executive,[5] imagining himself dancing with a group of middle aged dancers, including a six foot tall traffic warden, deliberately juxtaposed against Kershaw's 5'3" (160 cm) frame. The video was intended to be light-hearted, following on from the much darker video for Kershaw's previous single, "Wouldn't It Be Good".[3]
Dancing Girls captures the essence of teenybopping yesteryears. Is it any wonder that the likes of Eric Clapton held Nik in high esteem? Nope, because this is a classic example of British synthy-pop at its best.
