Groovy Tunes You Used to Love

Groovy Songs of back in “The Day*”

*NB: “The Day,” could be now for some people, and also, these songs might be regionally defined. I don’t know. There are quite a few dancers who still go crazy when they hear these songs. Hey – what comes around, goes around, ya know? — And I’m not talking about your mom.

In no particular order:

1. “Plenty” by Guru, featuring Erykah Badu.

• Why we loved it:
• It was “hip”-er than we were. Badu’s sassy voice over a hip-hop beat gave plenty of opportunities for us to hit all 87 breaks in the song with consistency. We could even use our mad pop & lock skillz. “Plenty” is a sexy narrative empowering women to get plenty of ….well, flowers, perfume, and massages. The contrast between the swinging vocals and the hip-hop sections gave us an opportunity to branch out with musicality in our preliminary phases. Plus, it’s a good song.

2. “Wade in the Water” by Eva Cassidy

• Cult favorite, when this gospel tune rippled through the room, eyelids drooped to a sultry half-lid, leads and follows twiddled their thumbs in hopes that Dancer McDreamy would ask them for the pleasure of the best 2 minutes of their lives (two minutes in heaven is better than one minute in heaven).

3. “Fever” by Peggy Lee

• A sexy forbidden love narrative compilation, “Fever” captured our need for slow tempo songs with words that embodied the needs and desires of our hopelessly romantic audience.

4. “Peel Me a Grape” by Diana Krall

• Again, following the woman empowering scheme ( peel me a grape, crush me some ice, cut me a peach and leave the fuzz for my pillow, talk to me nice, you’ve got to wine me and dine me…etc). What does it mean to “polar bear rug” someone? I don’t know, but we sure loved that song.

5. “Smooth Sailing (live)” Ella Fitzgerald

• If you can’t skat all of the boop boooo’s, meeeahhh’s, and the organ grinder solos, then you missed a big part of 2002. “Boo boo boo; boo boo boo-Wah…”

If I could turn all of these songs into jerseys and retire them in the rafters of some bluesy-groovy club, I would. But I’m not a magician (I’d probably need Frank’s help with that). These are the songs that for me, need only be taken down from the rafters to play in a salutary game, for loving, reminiscing, and remembering how far we’ve come.

–DS