Gonna take the song machine back to 1984 this week and visit the first hit of an act who’d go on to score big in the US a few years later.

Dating this one to 1984 does come with a few caveats, though – the song was originally released in 1982 when the group were known as Huang Chung. That single failed to chart. The band renamed themselves to the much more familiar Wang Chung and redid Dance Hall Days, releasing it on their album Points On The Curve. That record did get released in some territories in 1983, the US and other areas would see it in early 1984. For the purposes of my mega 1984 40^th anniversary celebration, it’s a 1984 song.

Dance Hall Days got a fair bit of traction on music charts across the globe, no matter the actual release date. The song hit number 16 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and also number 1 on the Dance chart. It was a number 21 hit in Wang Chung’s native UK. Oddly, that was the best chart placement ever for Wang Chung in their home territory, the band saw the bulk of their success career-wise in the US. The song was also a top 10 hit across many European countries, as well as Canada and Australia.

Today’s song fits straight into the new wave movement of the early 1980’s. The song is a nice, atmospheric mix of electronics and organic instruments and it sets a really chill vibe. It’s easy to hear how new wave became an important facet of music in the ’80’s. This is a beat that most anyone could get behind.

The song’s overall theme is a celebration of old-time dance halls that singer/guitarist Jack Hues remembers his dad playing in years gone by. Hues himself played in the band at times. This information comes from a podcast called Just My Show, which I have difficulty accessing but have transcribed the transcription of this site.

While the chorus is an innocent celebration of those dance halls, the verses do offer something a bit different. On the surface it’s just a collection of words that rhyme with body parts to move the song forward – “take your baby by the heel and do the next thing that you feel.” It’s not rocket science and I always took it as just words they put together to get the song done without any real deep meaning behind it.

But, just as I was doing some internet sleuthing for this post, I stumbled into a subset of people who think Dance Hall Days has sinister intentions behind the lyrics. There are people who interpret the passages more literally and believe there is some bent toward coercion or abuse in the various mingling of actions and body parts. I had a bit of a pause when I first saw it.

This 2013 article from Paste outlines the possible hidden creepiness of Dance Hall Days. Now this specific piece has a clear tongue-in-cheek air to it and is pretty amusing, but a lot of the other stuff I saw on reddit and in forums seemed to ascribe more ill intent to the lyrics. All I’ll say is I disagree that there is anything to these lyrics.

Dance Hall Days got two different music videos. The first, posted above and apparently age-restricted, was directed by the late Derek Jarman, and features his father’s home movies interspersed with the band goofing around. A second video was shot that did more to relate to a literal dance hall – that video is tougher to come across. I posted an unofficial upload down below, but we all know the video may not remain up long.

There are two other interesting pieces of trivia around the song. One is that Wang Chung almost didn’t release the song themselves, they instead offered it up for consideration to another artist. As multi-instrumentalist Nick Feldman recounts in this talk with Soundfacts, the song actually wound up in the hands of Quincy Jones, who was producing Michael Jackson and Thriller at the time. Jones and Jackson reportedly liked the song and considered recording it, but ultimately decided not to. That would have been quite a twist of fate for Wang Chung – the song got them on the map, but having a song on Thriller would have been its own world of success. I admit I can’t quite “hear” this song on that album, but I’m sure Jones and Jackson would have done a different arrangement for it.

The other factoid on offer is one I’ve shared about several songs – this was one of many tracks to feature in my favorite video game of all time, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The song is a perfect fit for the vibe and setting of that game, these two fit together like a glove. It was a match made in heaven and the song goes great with committing digital felonies.

For Wang Chung, Dance Hall Days would be the first score of their career, setting them up for further success in 1986. For me it’s a fantastic reminder of my youth and the “golden era” of 1980’s music.