Peak
1
Weeks
20
Score
4,353
Chart Year
1983
The music video (which uses the shorter single version) was made in March 1983 by David Mallet on location in New South Wales, Australia, including a bar in Carinda, the Warrumbungle National Park near Coonabarabran, and in Sydney, including The Strand Arcade, Broadway street in front of the University of Notre Dame Australia and a promontory on the Sydney Heads overlooking Sydney Harbour towards the Sydney central business district.[15][16] In the beginning, it featured Bowie with a double bass player inside the one-room bar at the Carinda Hotel and an Aboriginal couple 'naturally' dancing "to the song they're playin' on the radio". The couple in this scene and in the whole video were played by Terry Roberts and Joelene King, two students from Sydney's Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre. As Bowie opted for real people, some Carinda residents were present in the bar, watching and mocking the couple. They did not know who Bowie was or that a music video was being filmed, and their reactions towards the dancing couple were genuine.[17][18][19] The red shoes mentioned in the song's lyrics appear in several contexts. The couple wanders solemnly through the outback with some other Aboriginal people, when the young woman finds a pair of mystical red pumps on a desert mountain and instantly learns to dance. Stark argues Bowie's calling 'put on your red shoes' recalls Hans Christian Andersen's tale "The Red Shoes", in which the little girl was vainly tempted to wear the shoes only to find they could not be removed, separating her from God's grace – "let's dance for fear your grace should fall" [20] "The red shoes are a found symbol. They are the simplicity of the capitalist society and sort of striving for success – black music is all about 'Put on your red shoes'", as Bowie confirmed.[21] Soon, the couple is visiting museums, enjoying candlelit dinners and casually dropping credit cards, drunk on modernity and consumerism. During a stroll through an arcade of shops, the couple spots the same pair of red pumps for sale in a window display, their personal key to joy and freedom. They toss away the magic kicks in revulsion, stomping them into the dust and return to the mountains, taking one final look at the city they’ve left behind. Bowie described this video (and the video for his subsequent single, "China Girl") as "very simple, very direct" statements against racism and oppression, but also a very direct statement about integration of one culture with another
The title track to Bowie's 15th album, "Let's Dance," was produced by Nile Rodgers, who was responsible for the album's funky sound. Rodgers founded the disco band, Chic, and produced hits for Diana Ross, including "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out." He also produced Madonna's 1985 album Like a Virgin. On the surface, this song is about dancing with a lover, but according to Nile Rodgers, there's a deeper meaning. He told Mojo: "When David wrote those lyrics, he was talking about the dance that people do in life; the conceptual dance of not being honest. He sings, 'put on your red shoes and dance the blues.' Like you're pretending to be happy but you're sad." Because the song had "dance" in the title, Rodgers made sure it could move some butts. He was the right man for the job: Chic's hits include "Everybody Dance" and "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)." Stevie Ray Vaughan played lead guitar on this song. Bowie was impressed when he saw Vaughan perform at the Montreaux Jazz festival a year earlier. When Vaughan received the call from Bowie to play on the record, he was (although not literally) in the middle of recording his own album, Texas Flood. >> This was Bowie's only transatlantic #1, a very upbeat song with mass appeal. He described it as "positive, emotional and uplifting." Said Bowie: "I tried to produce something that was warmer and more humanistic than anything I've done for a long time. Less emphasis on the nihilistic kind of statement." The official video was directed by David Mallet. It was filmed in Australia and features an Aboriginal couple who are struggling against Western cultural imperialism. The video was described by Bowie as a "very simple, very direct" statement against racism. According to Mallet, they shot the bar scenes in the morning, which didn't go over well with the locals, who didn't appreciate Bowie and fashionable crew. Some of the patrons also resented the Aborigines who starred in the clip, and mocked them with their own dance moves. Mallet shot this on film and edited it into the video - the white people dancing in the bar were actually making fun of the couple. Red Shoes are a theme in the video and appear in the lyrics, "Put on your red shoes and dance the blues." This is a reference to the 1948 movie The Red Shoes, where a dancer performs in a ballet of that name. The idea is that the red shoes make you dance - it's based on a Hans Christian Andersen story of the same title. Kate Bush recorded a song about the same subject. The tour to support this album was called the "Serious Moonlight Tour," named after a line in this song: "Under the moonlight, the serious moonlight." Originally slated just for Europe, the tour was so successful that it was expanded to North America, Asia and Australia, often in large stadiums. Smashing Pumpkins covered this song in 1998 along with Joy Division's "Transmission" during a 25-minute live jam. >> Nile Rodgers said of this song in the 2013 film Davie Bowie: 5 Years in the Making of an Icon: "'Let's Dance' is not what I'd call a traditional dance record, but it's certainly a record that does make you want to dance. I thought to myself, 'Man, if I don't make a record that makes people want to dance, and we call the song Let's Dance, I'm going to have to trade in my black union card.'" Gnarls Barkley are digitally inserted into this video during their own video for "Smiley Faces." Nile Rodgers recalled to The Guardian May 18, 2012: "When Bowie and I got together to do Let's Dance, we spent two weeks researching music and styles and Bowie suddenly said: 'I got it!' He held up a Little Richard album cover where he's wearing a red suit, getting into a red Cadillac, with a pompadour haircut, and said: 'That's rock'n'roll.' After doing all that research with him, I got it too. I knew instantly what he wanted. We switched the suit for a yellow one when we released our record." Speaking with the Daily Telegraph July 30, 2013, Nile Rodgers recalled Bowie unveiling this song to him. "He says, 'Nile, darling, I think this is a hit,' and he proceeds to play what sounds like a folk song to me, with a twelve-string guitar," recalled the producer. Unable to tell Bowie that what he was playing was not dance music, Rodgers wrote an entire arrangement, taking it in "a funky direction." Said Rodgers: "I was like the Terminator, I was unstoppable, I just wanted to make hits with David." Bowie's brief cameo in the Ben Stiller film Zoolander is accompanied by this song. Peter Lawless was the location finder for the music video. He was also the location finder/manager for the Matrix films, which were also filmed in Australia. >> The song stands out from Stevie Ray Vaughan's usual blues-rock territory. Nile Rodgers said in a 2018 AMA Reddit he wishes there was cellphones back when they recorded "Let's Dance" so he "could have captured the look on Stevie's face when he first heard the track." Rodgers added: "He knew it was so important that the first thing he played was one single note - a Bb - to stay out of the way of the groove. He then ripped as he got more comfortable with the band and everyone in the room. We became lifelong friends and I produced The Vaughan Brothers and gave the eulogy at his funeral." Craig David's 2007 UK Top 10 hit "Hot Stuff" extensively samples this song.
Let's dance Let's dance Let's dance, put on your red shoes and dance the blues Let's dance, to the song they're playin' on the radio Let's sway, while color lights up your face Let's sway, sway through the crowd to an empty space If you say run, I'll run with you And if you say hide, we'll hide Because my love for you Would break my heart in two If you should fall Into my arms And tremble like a flower Let's dance Let's dance Let's dance, for fear your grace should fall Let's dance, for fear tonight is all Let's sway, you could look into my eyes Let's sway, under the moonlight, this serious moonlight And if you say run, I'll run with you And if you say hide, we'll hide Because my love for you Would break my heart in two If you should fall Into my arms And tremble like a flower Let's dance Let's dance Let's dance, put on your red shoes and dance the blues Let's dance, to the song we're playing Let's sway Let's sway, under the moonlight, this serious moonlight Let's dance Let's Let's Let's Let's sway Let's Let's dance let's dance let's dance let's dance let's dance Let's dance Let's sway Let's sway Let's dance let's dance let's dance let's dance let's dance Let's dance Let's dance
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mar 26, 1983 | 54 | 72 |
| 2 | Apr 2, 1983 | 43 | 83 |
| 3 | Apr 9, 1983 | 29 | 97 |
| 4 | Apr 16, 1983 | 15 | 111 |
| 5 | Apr 23, 1983 | 9 | 117 |
| 6 | Apr 30, 1983 | 6 | 120 |
| 7 | May 7, 1983 | 3 | 123 |
| 8 | May 14, 1983 | 2 | 124 |
| 9 | May 21, 1983 | 1 | 125 |
| 10 | May 28, 1983 | 2 | 124 |
| 11 | Jun 4, 1983 | 2 | 124 |
| 12 | Jun 11, 1983 | 2 | 124 |
| 13 | Jun 18, 1983 | 3 | 123 |
| 14 | Jun 25, 1983 | 5 | 121 |
| 15 | Jul 2, 1983 | 15 | 111 |
| 16 | Jul 9, 1983 | 31 | 95 |
| 17 | Jul 16, 1983 | 45 | 81 |
| 18 | Jul 23, 1983 | 67 | 59 |
| 19 | Jul 30, 1983 | 78 | 48 |
| 20 | Aug 6, 1983 | 91 | 35 |