Song Challenge Day #62 - A Song About a Dance

Joey D and the Starlighters - Peppermint Twist

There are so many songs to choose from in this category. It seems like ever since there has been popular music, people have been writing songs about dances. I wonder what the first song like this was? I know there have been dances for probably as long as there have been people making music, but the songs associated with those dances were accompaniments to the dance, they weren't about the dance. I think it's only been in more modern times that songs have fallen into this self-referential navel-gazing wormhole.

It seems like this really hit critical mass in the late 50's and early 60's,with the Twist, the Mashed Potato, and the Tighten Up, just to name a few. These were songs about a dance to which you could actually do that same dance. It's really meta if you think about it. In more recent history, it's been Walk it Out, the Dougie, Stanky Leg, Whip, and Nae Nae. And it's not going to stop any time soon.

For my choice I went back to 1962. I like in this video that you can actually see them doing the dance. I feel like there are probably some dances that have been lost to time, simply because of the timing of the advent of video technology. For example, there doesn't seem to be any consensus that I can find about how you actually do the Tighten Up. So now that you've read all this, watch the video and learn how to do the Peppermint Twist.