By Tony Attwood
An interesting choice from Bob as I can remember as a child buying this track – and listening to it now, I am sure why. Certainly, at the age I bought it I don’t think I fully understood the implication of the “last dance” although as a child learning the violin I was interested in the use of the violin in the instrumental break.
But it was a number 1 hit, and certainly Ben E King’s voice is superb – I wonder if I appreciated that. And I certainly wouldn’t have known about Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman as composers, but it has all the smoothness of one of their compositions.
But despite all its obvious attributes, the story is that the song was meant to be the B side of the Drifters single. And here’s something I didn’t know until looking into the song today; it was released after Ben E King left the Drifters. Now there’s a thing!
The song was co-written by Doc Pomus who it is reported, suffered from polio, and was dedicated to his wife, with whom he could manage but one dane because of his affliction. But I have no idea if that is so – but it is curiously, not an easy song to dance to in any formalised way since the beat does not lend itself to the regularity that dancing to popular music requires, so that tale may not be true.
It is also interesting how limited the melody is through the first 12 bars or so up to the lyrics “but don’t forget”. It seems to me that this is one of those songs where most people have a remembrance of the instrumental break as much as the chant “You can dance”. Yet somehow it works perfectly and everyone who was around at the time still can remember it!
Previously in this series
- All in the game
- Ball of Confusion
- Big Boss Man
- Big River
- Black Magic Woman
- Blue Bayou
- Blue Moon
- Blue Suede Shoes
- By the time I get to Phoenix
- Cheaper to Keep Her
- CIA Man – the Fugs
- Come on over to my place
- Detroit City
- Don’t let me be misunderstood
- Don’t take your gun to town
- Dirty Life and Times
- Detroit City
- Dirty Life and Times
- Don’t hurt anymore
- Don’t let me be misunderstood
- El Paso
- Everybody’s cryin mercy
- Feel so Good
- Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves”
- I got a woman
- If you don’t know me by now
- It’s all in the game
- I’ve always been crazy
- Jesse James and Po Boy
- Keep my Skillet Good and Greasy
- Key to the highway
- Little White Cloud that Cried
- Long Tall Sally
- London’s Calling
- Mac the Knife
- Midnight Rider
- Mother in Law
- Money Honey
- My Generation and Desolation Row
- My prayer
- Nellie was a Lady
- Old and Only in the Way
- Old Violin by Johnny Paycheck
- On the road again (save a horse)
- On the street where you live
- Pancho and Lefty
- Please don’t let me be misunderstood
- Poor Little Fool
- Poison Love
- Pump it up
- Ruby are you mad
- Saturday night at the movies
- Save the Last Dance For Me
- Strangers in the Night
- Truckin
- Take Me from This Garden of Evil
- The Pretender
- The Whiffenpoof Song
- There stands the glass
- Tutti Fruiti (A wap bop a … etc)
- Volare
- War
- Waist Deep in the Big Muddy
- When
- Where or When
- Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me
- Witchy Woman
- Without a song
- Your cheating heart