SHANNON SMITH
DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY (DO DO DO DO)
If I tried to count the ways the world is currently fucked up, I’d quickly run out of fingers and the will to live. That’s why the world needs artists like Shannon Smith and the jaunty swagger of his debut single, ‘Dance The Night Away (Do Do Do Do)’.
Listen to ‘Dance The Night Away…’ once and you’ll know that sadness is not an option. Listen to it twice and you may just start to enjoy life again.
I don’t know if he meant it, but ‘Dance The Night Away…’ is the antidote to knowing there’s no turning back, that the world will inevitably end. You see, it’s not what you know, it’s what you do with that knowledge that counts, so why not just dance and be happy? What’s the point of being down about it all when it won’t change a single thing?
At its very best, pop music is just plain silly. Think Macca and ‘Silly Love Songs’ or Leo Sayer and pretty much any of his tracks. It makes you bob your head and gives you stupid choruses like Do Do Do Do, that you can’t sing along to without smiling. It takes you away from the drab world for three minutes or so and makes you feel plain good. That’s the essence of ‘Dance The Night Away…’, it’s a listen-on-repeat slice of feel-good whimsy that makes no sense at all. And thank the universe for that, because trying to make sense of things is what’s got us into all this trouble in the first place.
With its upstroke guitars, brass and piano, ‘Dance The Night Away…’ is a song you should listen to on a summer’s day with the top down as you travel along Indian Ocean Drive. Its irrepressible bridge with those collective ahs and rising melody are as comforting as a gentle breeze, and the well-proportioned propulsion of the song’s percussive backbeat makes movement mandatory. Listen to ‘Dance The Night Away…’ once and you’ll know that sadness is not an option. Listen to it twice and you may just start to enjoy life again. Put it on repeat and who knows what joy it will bring you?
You see, pop music isn’t silly at all, it’s some of the wisest medicine we have and, with Shannon Smith as its latest medicine man, we’re all going to be dancing the night away no matter what tomorrow may bring.
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