30 Songs - Day 9

Day 09 - A Song You Can Dance To

As has been made abundantly clear, I'm not the biggest fan of dance music. I primarily appreciate music in my head and my heart, rather than my feet. Of course, that's not to say I don't feel an itching in my toes at the sound of a well-curated indie disco, or even a soulful chunk of floorfilling Northern or wedding party Dexys. The last time I properly crashed the dancefloor though, it was to get down to This Charming Man and Born To Run, hardly your first thought when it comes to songs that put a beat in your feet.

"I'm a lover, not a dancer," as Jim Steinman put it - and I did almost choose his gloriously overblown Dance In My Pants for Day 9... but then I took a moment to think back to the school discos of my youth. Whenever I do that, two artists stick in my mind. The first is Whitney Houston, whose smiling, wailing, triumphant I Wanna Dance With Somebody almost made a pop-kid of me. The second, much less surprising, is the Housemartins. Yes, I well remember watching everyone slow dance to Caravan Of Love, but I was generally hugging the wall by the time that came on. You'd be far more likely to catch me on my toes to this, a happy hour or so earlier in the night...