DANCE THIS WORLD AWAY
(Lyrics by Rick Springfield / Music by Rick Springfield and Tim
Pierce)
Everybody looks so spaced out there
Busy bowing to the priests of noise
Turn it up and make it drown out the warning
Bad news for the girls and boys
Everybody looks so romantic
Acting like it's nothing at all
Looking out for Number One
Working for the week and
Living to the beat
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
I see people all dressed like Nero
Fiddling while Rome burns in strife
Personal responsibility zero
We've lost that rhythm of life
There's a shadow on our bright horizon
It won't be manna falling out of the sky
The hard rain hits everyone
Working for the week and
Living to the beat
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Somewhere there is a ship that's sinking
Why do I think that nobody knows
Looking out for Number One
Working through the week and
Dancing to the back beat
Dance, dance, dance this
world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance, dance, dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance this world away
Dance, dance...
(total playing time 4:33)
Song Facts:
Rick performed this song live during the 1985 tour.
This song appears on the following releases: Tao, Best 21 (Jpn), Legendary,
and Anthology (written in rock)
|
|
Well as an adult, I know that this is a song about the
destruction of the world by our not being aware. But when it first came out ~ I was more
attached to this song as a way to vent my anger and frustration. Dance This World Away was
my dancing and screaming song. I remember this stage of my life so well. My older sister
was in her 2nd year of college and I was stuck at home with an 11 year old sister that had
stupidly broke her hip (or so I thought at the time). I lived on a 40 acre farm with
extremely strict parents and I felt very far away from
anything comforting. I felt isolated from my older sister that had her own problems and
didn't want to hear about what I was enduring without her. I would go out to the barn with
my boombox and blare this song. I remember being highly sucidal and this song became a
great anger managing tool.
Lyrics like "Somewhere there is a ship that's sinking Why do I think that nobody
knows" only reinforced my nobody cares about me feelings. Even listening to this
song today can cause those old feelings to be felt again even as I struggle to connect to
the "truer" message of the cold war theme. Can I also mention that I loved Edie
Lehmann's voice ~ assumption that she's the gal that is singing. :)
Back in the day, this was one of my favorite songs
off of this album (which is still one of my top albums of all time).
Everybody looks so spaced out there, Busy bowing to the priests of noise. I
always took this to mean the music industry and people in dance clubs (the priests of
noise being the "rock gods" or "pop stars", and maybe even Dick Clark
and Casey Kasum).
Everybody looks so romantic, Acting like it's nothing at all. The one
night stand (in my young teen mind).
Looking out for Number One. Common theme for Rick, nobody cares about no one (I
was still thinking of the young man from 'souls').
Working for the week and, Living to the beat. Hhey, didn't he have an album
called "working class dog"? :) Living to the beat, that was me as a teenager,
always had a radio to my ear (whenever possible). Come to think of it, haven't outgrown it
yet.
Dance this world away. I took this literally. We didn't have dances very often,
but when we did, look out for me. :-D besides, the kids on Bandstand didn't look like they
had much to worry about....
I see people all dressed like Nero, Fiddling while Rome burns in strife. I
thought I was sooooo clever, that I knew to whom he was referring. I still love it when a
song addresses a cultural / societal / historical reference.
Personal responsibility zero. Again, another theme common for Rick, especially on
this album. We were all so poised for nuclear war at this time, all ready to blame it on
"the other side". plus, it was the 80's. Everyone (on Miami Vice, for example)
was doing horrible things and getting away with it. Drugs, violence and casual sex were
cool, divorce was the norm; basically the world seemed to be falling apart, according to
jerry falwell and the nightly news.
Somewhere there is a ship that's sinking, Why do I think that nobody knows.
He (as represented by that ship--remember the leaky ship that just came in?) feels
abandoned by God, perhaps even feeling that there was no God. Completely alone.
Sigh. I soooo felt the same back then, and it was nice to know that I wasn't alone in
feeling alone.
Hmmm, leaky ship. since his "father died just before his leaky ship came in",
I'm wondering if he's not feeling just a wee bit abandoned by his dad, too, who obviously
wasn't watching from heaven if there wasn't a God.... just a thought.
Ok, I must've been going thru my ditzy teenage girl
hormone thing when this song was released. I took it at face value; didn't really look
into the lyrics too deeply. Yeah, yeah - there's a nuclear threat, the politicians have
been hanging this over our heads for years. I couldn't understand why Rick felt it
was such an important topic to warrant a song on an album. I wanted to hear more "I
love you" songs..not this.
I wrote a paper in high school titled "Artists' Lyrics Reflect Nuclear Worries",
and quoted this song and Sting's "Russians" (there was more, but I can't
remember specifically off the top of my head) .
I pointed out how Rick was saying that this nuclear threat was going to catch up to us,
catch us with our pants down-so to speak. How it seemed that these celebrities / musicians
seemed to make a somewhat moot point (loved that word then, still do) in my opinon, when
there was so much more at home, in families lives that needed to be addressed. Children
were being abused, teens were running away, whole families were homeless...etc.
Needless to say I got an A (side note: I know I have this somewhere..still looking for it
in my stash I just moved to my house, so you might see a scan of it if interested) for my
efforts, but the whole point of the song was lost on me then. I never once applied this
song to me. Now I look at these lyrics, and especially the line "Turn it up and
make it drown out the warning" screams at me. That's what I did.
This song does nothing for me, not even now, really. I
have no idea what I thought about it back in the 80's, I know I never knew the deeper
meaning of it. There's all this serious subject matter set to this really up-beat. This
was probably done on purpose to emphasis the point. I was listening to this song on the
way back from a movie a couple of weeks ago, my 14 year old son was with me, and the end
was playing (where Dance This World Away repeats over and over), and he says "gee, I
wonder what the name of this song is." It does seem to go on forever, kind of like
Rick is saying if I just sing this enough, over and over, all this bad stuff will go away.
Anyone else think it sounds like he's saying "dancing the world away"?.....I
have to be really careful, because that's what I think it is half the time (you'd think
the title would clue me in just a little).
My favorite line is "personal responsibility zero", because that was SO
the attitude of the 80's.
This was not one of my favorite songs
(even though Tao is in a 3-way tie for my favorite Rick CD ever). I
was a freshman in college when Tao came out and that TV movie "The Day
After" (with Jason Robarts ..anyone remember that one) about theday
after a nuclear attack in the USA had just aired. We had to write papers on
the movie for school, and I always managed to sneak in a quote or two from
the Rock God himself. I plagiarized this song quite a bit. (Sorry Mr.
Springfield...please don't sue me......). Even used it to write an assigned
poem comparing something terrible (nuclear war) and something mundane
(combing your hair).
It did kind of "speak" to me then because that movie really
freaked me out. I shared alot of the feelings of anxiety and
fear Rick expressed in the song. I also loved how he tied in the whole
attitude of the 80's with the lines..."personal
responsibility zero" and "looking out for number one".
Although I must admit that the repetition did wear on my nerves a bit.
However...I did think it really captured the hopelessness and terror of a
possible nuclear attack.
I think this is a real 80's song. The repetitious "Dance this World
Away" throughout it is so...80's. This was not one of my
favorites on the album - I think basically because of the topic, but I do
have a new found interest in this one.
I know that back when this song came
out I certainly wasn't paying much attention to what the lyrics meant. I was
just enjoying the music. However, now I can see what the meaning
is all about. Plus, the 80's were a totally materialistic time in America.
Money was plenty and the economy was good, so people were having a good
time, not paying attention to the strife going on in the rest of the world.
I mean it was a time of Guess jeans, Dynasty, and Madonna (haha..some things
never change, she's got staying power!).
Well, that was my world, plus, even though I was in college, I was having
too much fun and didn't study as much as I should have, but I got by. I was
only thinking of myself, not what else may have been going on in the
world.....the fall of the wall between East and West Germany, hmmm...well,
that's all I remember for that time in world history. See, total self
indulgence and not paying attention to world politics. |
