Musical Chairs
#55 Let's Dance
It's early 1983 and I've just turned seventeen. Up until this point, I had only inhabited the kingdom of darkness - shadowy youth clubs and alternative nights where we set our own rules. But it was time for me to cross over. To the land of burgundy slip-ons, white towelling socks and tank tops tucked into trousers. To the mainstream. To a "proper nightclub".
My passport for this journey was the David Bowie single Let's Dance, a song with the uncanny ability to make you feel like you can do anything. As far as we were concerned, Bowie was one of us, but it felt like the masses were staking a claim to him. Either way, if Bowie was going mainstream, we were going with him.
It's true that Ashes to Ashes had topped the charts in 1980 but even a cursory glance at the official video confirms that D. Bowie Esq. was about as far away from the mainstream as it's possible to get. Three years on, Bowie was back - with bleached hair, an impeccably tailored suit and Nile Rodgers. Things had changed. And the dancefloor became the battleground for Bowie's disciples, of whatever creed.
The album Let's Dance was released 42 years ago this week, but it was the single of the same name that gave me the confidence to face the mainstream without fear. Bowie was here, so maybe we were welcome too?
With some trepidation, I donned a pair of - God help me - reversible green and black/red and black pinstripe trousers (almost definitely from Topman), Tukka boots and a shirt so disturbing it has been permanently erased from my mind. Of course, I thought I was Bowie - the reality is I looked more like a refugee from a Def Leppard training camp. But naivety, confusion and terrible trousers were all part of being a teenager in the early 80s. And in my case, I was as into heavy rock as I was Bowie, so I was being authentic if nothing else.
The truth is that I actually felt quite at home in my new habitat - the club played I.O.U. by Freeez, A Night to Remember by Shalamar and Just an Illusion by Imagination, all records I liked then and love now. But it took Bowie to convince me to explore this new world and there were surely many, many more like me. It's yet another layer to his incredible legacy.
That was going to be the end of the post. But something happened when I started to research the song and the club. As I dug deeper, I learned that - unbeknown to me - the connection between the two was far more significant than my ungainly dance moves. The song and accompanying video highlight the plight of the Aboriginal Australians. And the name of the nightclub? Illawalla, an Aboriginal Australian word that translates as the house of plenty.
Isn't it strange how the rearview mirror can shed startling new light on the memories of the past?
Classic Bowie. Brilliant. It's irresistible. No wonder you couldn't help yourself. I get quite annoyed at Bowie snobs who refuse to engage in any 80s Bowie. I mean, how can you go past China Girl? And yes, highlighting, in a very sanitised way, the plight of Aboriginal Australians, long before talks of reconciliation, black deaths in custody, closing the gap, truth telling & treaty and native title but shortly after Aboriginal land rights were introduced in the Northern Territory. Aboriginal people routinely allowed in a whitefella pub in 1984? No. Even now it's still quite astonishing for its time. Interestingly, it was released the year after Goanna released the song Solid Rock, a scathing indictment on the European invasion of Australia - see here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSNxFGW09Mo I'd always wondered about the Let's Dance video - have you discovered anything further about Bowie's thoughts/motivation or that of the producer?
I never got into 'those sorts of trousers' but that album got me into Bowie in a big way. I was recently released from art college and had a job, but there were a couple of kids there who were well into David. They played, on cassette tapes, "Alalddin Sane", and "Hunky Dorie". A lot. It was okay, then I heard "Let's Dance" and thought - maybe there's something in this fellow! I went backwards, as I was often doing (Led Zepplin backwards to Muddy Waters etc etc), and re-realised David Bowie was something else. Some of my favourites were not his later albums, although I loved "Let's Dance," but "Hunky Dory," "Aladdin Sane," and "Ziggy Stardust." As Dr. Kerry King says, there were some amazing later, 1980's tracks which I loved. I then went on to find Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel and my life was complete! Well, you know...