DAVID BOWIE - LET'S DANCE

LET'S DANCE

DAVID BOWIE

SONGWRITERS: DAVID BOWIE; PHILIPPE MARC ANQUETIL; CHRISTOPHER JAMES LEE-JOE & MARTIN SCOTT CARRE

COUNTRY: ENGLAND

ALBUM: LET’S DANCE

LABEL: EMI AMERICA RECORDS

GENRE: DANCE POP

YEAR: 1983

Let's Dance is the 15th studio album by David Bowie. It was originally released in April 1983, three years after his previous album, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). Co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers, the album contains three of his most successful singles; the title track, "Let's Dance", which reached No. 1 in the UK, US and various other countries, as well as "Modern Love" and "China Girl", which both reached No. 2 in the UK. "China Girl" was a new version of a song which Bowie had co-written with Iggy Pop for the latter's 1977 album The Idiot. It also contains a re-recorded version of the song "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", which had reached number one in New Zealand, Norway and Sweden a year earlier.

Let's Dance was nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy Award in 1984 but lost to Michael Jackson's Thriller. It has sold 10.7 million copies worldwide, making it Bowie's best-selling album. It is Bowie's eighteenth official album release since his debut in 1967, including two live albums, one covers album (Pin Ups, 1973), and a collaboration with the Philadelphia Orchestra (1978). At one point Bowie described the album as "a rediscovery of white-English-ex-art-school-student-meets-black-American-funk, a refocusing of Young Americans". Let's Dance was also a stepping stone for the career of the Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who played on it. The album was released as a limited edition picture disc in 1983.

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

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 they're playin' on the radio

Let's sway under the moonlight,

This serious moonlight

[Repeat until the end:]

Let's dance

Let's sway.