Soundtracked

The Safety Dance

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This week's theme: One Hit Wonders

Is this week almost over? I haven't read each and every single entry for "The Soundtrack of Your Life" , but I've read most of 'em, and I'm surprised my choice for today hasn't shown up yet (but I could be wrong).

Allow me first to interpret today's selection for the overly smart people out there who aren't influenced whatsoever by pop culture:

Glad we could get that outta the way. Now, I don't happen to have any fantastic stories (that I can recall at least) surrounding the inclusion of Men Without Hats...although in high school I was frequently told "It is impolite to wear your hat inside a building!" or some other bureaucratic bullshit (and if wearing a hat indoors makes me impolite, then I'm the rudest mofo this side of Mike Nesmith   ).

What I do remember is this song being popular when I was really young (Wikipedia says it was released in January of '83, which would've made me all of seven years old at the time). Exact details escape me, but I think I had received as a Christmas gift my own personal radio by then, and I would bring it into the dining room (where my bedroom was off of) while I was putting together jigsaw puzzles, or drawing up my own personal collection of football cards with me as the star quarterback, or building concert stages out of Legos. That "New Wave" sound was appealing to me...it was funner and fresher than the "classic oldies" from the 60's I was almost always hearing.

I also don't know if I knew this before or not, but Men Without Hats was a Canadian band. I think I just assumed they were British or Australian, and for no good reason I'm sure. Not that that detail matters much...I was 7. I don't think I even learned how to spell "Australia" until I was 9, and "Britain" until I was 19. (Seriously...why can't we just call it "Britin" like we describe people as "British"? Also, I never spelled it like "Britin"...my problem was transposing the "a" and the "i". How would you even pronounce that? Brit-AYNE? BRI-shan? Words are stupid.)

And somehow I think I managed to not hear and totally forget about this song between the mid-80's and early 2000's. I was in my sister's truck after a night out and she had some 80's compilation cd playing...I'm pretty sure I lost my shit when it came on, thinking about the two decades I did not have "The Safety Dance" in my life more often. I had to have been the friend no one wanted apparently because I wasn't dancing.

"We can dance if we want to. We can leave your friends behind.
Cuz your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, well they're no friends of mine."
Lyrics.  

I also never realized how many people were in Men Without Hats throughout their history, including members of iconic grunge bands Mudhoney and Alice In Chains, and that chick from Will & Grace  .