The Regular Friday Post
Rando Lyric: It remains somehow indifferent
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “Everything'll work out right” is from the song "The Safety Dance”, by Men Without Hats, written by Ivan Doroschuk - the song is Track 6 on the Canada/UK LP/CD “Rhythm Of Youth” released in April 1982; Track 2 on the US album (same name) released in March 1983. The song, “The Safety Dance” was released as a single in Canada in 1982, in the US in 1983 (It’s also Track 1 on the compilation album (Link)>“Greatest Hats” released in 1996). Produced by Marc Durand.
Links (Wikipedia): Rhythm Of Youth album The Safety Dance
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
I needed some comic relief this week! Rather than spend a lot of time explaining this song’s backstory I’ll just say this song always made me laugh back in the MTV days (Ed. when MTV was still actually MTV…) even before I read the “pogoing” story behind it. I’m just going to give you the pretty funny Wikipedia version of what it is, and what it is not, which is also hilarious….
From Wikipedia (link above, emphasis mine):
"The writer/lead singer Ivan Doroschuk has explained that "The Safety Dance" is a protest against bouncers prohibiting dancers from pogoing to 1980s new wave music in clubs when disco was declining and new wave was beginning its popularity. Unlike disco dancing, which is done with partners, new wave dancing is done individually and involves holding the torso rigid while thrashing about; pogoing involves jumping up and down (the more deliberately violent evolution of pogoing is slamdancing). Clubgoers doing the newer pogo dance were perceived as posing a danger to disco dancers on the dance floor, and so club bouncers would tell pogoers to stop or be kicked out of the club. Thus, the song is a protest and a call for freedom of expression.[9] In 2003, on an episode of VH1's True Spin, Doroschuk responded to two common interpretations of the song. Firstly, he explained "The Safety Dance" is not a call for safe sex, and that this interpretation is "people reading into it a bit too much". Secondly, he explained that it is not an anti-nuclear protest song per se despite the nuclear imagery at the end of the video. Doroschuk stated that "it wasn't a question of just being anti-nuclear, it was a question of being anti-establishment."[10] "
“Pogo”, by Walt Kelly, a favorite cartoon character from the golden age of newspaper comic strips…
Some Stuff
The “biz”:
Sheeran....Again - the case that will not die… though not the heirs of Marvin Gaye this time - it’s a company that owns a portion of the copyright. I wouldn’t be bothering with this, but the issue is (I think) dependent on the concept of the “arrangement” - as I read the sparse facts, the copyright was issued based on sheet music that may or may not been similar (enough) to the final version of the released song to fall within the scope of the copyright. This argument would not have much merit today because of the “sound recording” copyright that exists now, but didn’t when “Let’s Get It On” was released. The reason I’m posting the link at all is this: if you’re writing songs, thinking about writing songs, have fragments that you will finish, be sure to copyright all 3 aspects of your work: The composer copyright, the publisher copyright and the sound recording copyright. If you have a deal with a record label or other music publisher the percentage of your ownership of the publishing copyright is a matter of negotiation, likewise, if you co-write with someone, negotiate the splits, and if your sound recording is a result of multiple artists work, make certain you have a split agreement in place with them. Finally, if your song is going to be used in a film/television production, make sure any non-credited musicians who appear on the sound recording are registered with the SAG-AFTRA union, they may be eligible for a portion of the productions earnings.
Amazon vs Spotify Audiobook Royalties - Music used in an audiobook (Ed. I admit I don’t know anything about audiobooks, so not sure what the “music” might be) may generate royalties - Amazon fires a shot at Spotify by paying artists more (or at least not less) when “bundling” books from Audible. Or something…
More Stuff:
Tik Tok Guide - “A Tik Tok Guide For Musicians” from CD Baby - it’s “free”, but only in the sense that you’re probably going to end up on a mailing list for “free” (like me….)
George Harrison And Paul Simon - Here Comes The Sun - I think I posted this awhile ago, but…
Some Famous Guitars and Other Stuff…
A Song To Play…
It’s “The Safety Dance”…(So Everybody Look At Your Hands)
4/4 common time, a moderate 100 BPM, Key of C, more or less…
Mr. Doroschuk disregards most of “the rules”; which is an approach that I greatly admire! Let’s take a look at his rampant music theory law violations and let him be on his way with our thanks…
So, the Key of CMajor diatonically looks like this: CMaj, Dm, Em, FMaj, GMaj, Am, B(dim) - but that’s definitely for Herberts* most of the time. Mr. Doroschuk liberally uses non-diatonic chords such as the A#/Bb chord, sprinkles in some D#/Eb chords, then more than a few G#/Ab chords, then appears to switch to the Key of GMajor in measures 32-41 and 58-end. And maybe he did, just for grins - Chordify isn’t great at annotating key changes within songs.
(Example: “Layla” by Eric Clapton, performed by Derek And The Dominoes, is in 2 keys, FMaj and Dm - with the change coming in the latter part of the song, but Chordify sees the whole song as a CMajor song - so “The Safety Dance” may also be in multiple keys, with CMajor being the Chordify default when confronted with such anomalies…dunno)
It probably doesn’t really matter if it’s in 2 different keys if you’re going to play it and sing along in CMaj for practice. If you were going to perform it in public or at a jam, and you wanted to sing/play in a different key or keys, things could get complicated in a hurry…just sayin…
or Bb, Eb, and Ab. Chordify seems to just want the designation to be one way or the other throughout the song. I get it, it’s basically a bot, bots like consistency. Or something…
Lyrics
(From Song Facts) Link>The Safety Dance<
We can dance if we want to We can leave your friends behind 'Cause your friends don't dance And if they don't dance Well, they're no friends of mine Say, we can go where we want to A place where they will never find And we can act like we come From out of this world Leave the real one far behind And we can dance Or sing We can go when we want to Night is young and so am I And we can dress real neat From our hats to our feet And surprise 'em with the victory cry Say, we can act if we want to If we don't, nobody will And you can act real rude and totally removed And I can act like an imbecile And say, we can dance, we can dance Everything's out of control We can dance, we can dance They're doing it from pole to pole We can dance, we can dance Everybody look at your hands We can dance, we can dance Everybody's taking the chance Safety dance Oh well, the safety dance Ah yes, the safety dance We can dance if we want to We've got all your life and mine As long as we abuse it, never gonna lose it Everything'll work out right I say, we can dance if we want to We can leave your friends behind Because your friends don't dance And if they don't dance Well, they're no friends of mine I say, we can dance, we can dance Everything's out of control We can dance, we can dance We're doing it from pole to pole We can dance, we can dance Everybody look at your hands We can dance, we can dance Everybody's taking the chance Oh well, the safety dance Ah yes, the safety dance Oh well, the safety dance Oh well, the safety dance Oh yes, the safety dance Oh, the safety dance, yeah Well, it's the safety dance It's the safety dance Well, it's the safety dance Well, it's the safety dance Oh, it's the safety dance Oh, it's the safety dance
Ed. From Song Facts today instead of Genius, because the Genius page had a large portion of the repeated lyric “it’s the safety dance” as “it’s safe to dance”. I dunno, I checked some other lyric sources and no one had the lyric as the Genius page does. As I listened to it, it seemed to me there are enough syllables in “it’s the safety dance” or even a “it’s a safety dance” lyric, but not enough to support “it’s safe to dance”. I dunno and your mileage may vary, but feel free to let me know if you can find either version claiming authenticity from a reliable source!
*A “Herbert” is a reference to a Star Trek TOS episode which referred to an inflexible, rule-bound individual named “Herbert”, whose name was used as a derisive term for such folk….
See: The Way To Eden
Some Links For Today:
(If the link description sounds interesting , click on it.)
*From Acoustic Guitar Magazine:
*From Songtown:
Don't Live In Nashville, LA or NYC? Here's Some Advice
*From Disc Makers:
ED. None of these result in compensation to me in any way, and I’m not endorsing any of them, but some of my readers may find them as interesting as I did…
The “ME!” Section…..
What I’m Listening2: “Sail On, Crimson And Grey”
Shameless Self Promotion Section:
My song is out! Link: “>Long Road Back<”click on this link for streaming options, then scroll down for links (or just click on these links) to Amazon, Apple, Pandora, iTunes and even Spotify
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Disclaimer Section
This Substack is free, I receive no compensation of any kind from companies or products I mention. Some linked or quoted material may be copyrighted by others, and I credit them. I rely on the “Fair Use” doctrine for educational purposes (Link: Fair Use). *I do not use AI for any of the text that’s found here, things I link to (such as some images) might…
-Michael Acoustic
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This Week’s Conversation With Mika, The Cat:
I got the Strat out to play, she immediately decided the open case would be a good spot for a nap…
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”
I remember pogoing to the Go-Go's in the early 80s, but we did it at parties not at clubs. Great fun. I didn't know The Safety Dance story -- that is quite amusing!