Wednesday, January 7, 2026

"Dance, Dance, Dance"

Yester-day, I listened to a compilation album of Chuck Berry (in the 20th Century Masters series) and noticed that the situation in his "School Days" is also portrayed in the Beach Boys' "Dance, Dance, Dance."  After listing a bunch of school-related problems, the narrator in "School Days" describes a release:
Drop the coin right into the slot
You gotta hear something that's really hot
With the one you love, you're makin' romance
All day long, you've been wantin' to dance
Feelin' the music from head to toe
Round and round and round you go
"Dance, Dance, Dance" merely condenses this, even using some of the same vocabulary:
After six hours of school, I had enough for the day
I hit the radio dial and turn it up all the way

I gotta dance right on the spot
The beat's really hot
Dance, dance, dance, yeah

When I feel put down, I try to shake it off quick
With my chick by my side, the radio does the trick
Chuck Berry is an acknowledged influence on the Beach Boys, so it seems likely that this similarity was intentional.

When I transcribed some of the lyrics of "Dance, Dance, Dance," I also noticed that "hot" is sung with a melisma (E F E D, I think), giving a sense of degree (for the modifying "really").