the safety dance

Anne and I were listening to Fred while we were driving home from Burbank the other day. That stupid “Safety Dance” song came on, and I said to her, “This is the weirdest song, ever.”
“Yeah, who thought this was a good idea?” she said.
“I mean, think about all the steps that went into this: someone wrote down all these words, then composed music, then produced the whole thing . . . and at every step of the way, they believed that this was a song worth releasing.” I said.
“Hey, Neil,” she said, in a really bad British accent, “Let’s make a song about the Safety Dance!”
“Oh, that’s brilliant!” I said, in my own bad accent, “We’ll have them all hoppin’ and dancin’ and –”
I started to giggle, and was unable to continue.
“You can dance! You can dance! Everybody look at your hands!” I sang, involuntarily.
CLAP! CLAP! went Anne’s hands.
“You can dance! You can dance! Everybody’s taking the chaaaaa-HAAAAA-nnnncccceeeeee . . . ” I continued.
“With the SAFETY DANCE!” We shouted out in unison.
“We are such dorks,” Anne said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
We sang the remainder of the song with extreme gusto.
I should also point out that when we got home, Ryan told us that he wants to buy “Thriller.”
I think there’s something in the water here.

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67 thoughts on “the safety dance”

  1. Aww…you know you love someone when you can be a complete dork around them.
    And yes…Safety Dance ranks as one of the weirdest songs ever.

  2. Somewhere I remember hearing that it was about safe sex or abstinence. I guess they wanted everyone to dance instead. Whatever. Still a weird song.

  3. I love Safety Dance. Even have it on my iPod. 🙂
    You can click on a blog if you want to, or you can leave Will Wheaton’s behind, because if you don’t dance then you’re no friend of mine….
    heh 🙂

  4. Wil, well if you think you two are dorks, let me top you… The song is by a French Canadian Band called Men Without Hats… They were 80’s 2 hit wonders… unfortunately the Safety Dance was one of those hits… or near misses…
    So almost everything in your banter with Anne was right although you have to substitute the British Accents with French ones!
    You can dance! You can dance! Everybody’s taking the Tabbbbbeeeerrrrrnnnnaaaaaccccccccc . . .

  6. OK, *NOW* I feel old! Michael says everyone was taking drugs in the 80s… damn, I remember saying that about the 60s!
    And thanks Wil… you’ve now infected me with that mental meme all day… time to run get some Disturbed and try to wipe out that insidious tune…

  7. ROFLMAO! You are so silly!
    (well, to be honest, with YOUR hands, I could see why you would want to look at them.)
    /loves Wil’s hands

  8. I just saw a bit about the “Safety Dance” on VH1 the other night! Apparently, it’s actually about ‘moshing’ or slamdancing! The lead singer used to love to slamdance in the early 80’s and got kicked out of clubs for it a lot….so he wrote the song. “It’s safe to dance….” is supposed to be his way of saying they should be allowed to do it if they want. Kinda anticlimactic, huh. 🙂

  9. Men without hats are hardly 2 hit wonders. They have an extensive discography, with best sellers occuring long after “safety dance” era…

  10. OH! It’s “look at your HANDS”. I always thought it was “everybody look at your pants”.
    Not that hands makes more sense, I suppose…

  12. aw, i just ~love~ reading stories about you & anne. you guys are modern day proof of “happily ever after”.
    i love the way you write wil, you make the reader feel like they’re right there with you. this passage is no exception.

  14. My understanding is that Safety dance is about the horrors of nuclear war.
    So is 99 red baloons.
    Oh, BTW December 63 by the Four Seasons is about the end of prohibition.

  15. Two hit wonders? What’s their other hit? Safety Dance is the only song I recall by Men Without Hats.
    It was also a pretty weird video.

  16. Ahh thats a great song to Karaoke to, mainly because it’s easy and you really don’t have to be on key. Yeah its werid but its so much fun…

  17. Their other hit was Pop Goes the World.
    Two of the greatest ’80’s songs!!! I still love Pop Goes the World… in fact, I still have the tape with it… 🙂
    And Ivan (the lead singer) came out with his own CD back in the late ’90s… some of his stuff wasn’t bad either.
    And if anyone’s interested, Men Without Hats is looking for a new lead singer… just check out their website!

  19. 80s music is so kitchy. I love it!
    Indeed, The Safety Dance gets me dancing. While they are a Canadian band, they were signed in the UK first because all Canadian labels rejected them. Can you blame them? Yet Canadian labels signed Anne Murray and Celine Dion. *sigh* What were they thinking??
    Someone mentioned 99 Red Balloons. I get doubly excited when the German version (99 Luft Ballons) comes on.

  20. Men Without Hats is Canadian. 8)
    Oh, and that’s not their best song. I’ve, uh, got all their albums. And all their singles. And some bootlegs. And, um.
    Okay, I’m a fanboy.

  21. That reminds me of the time my husband and I drove through Montana.. We drove for 17 hours and sang classic rock songs because that was the only radio station that would come in… I can’t sing, but my husband can, which made it all the more hilarious. That’s a great memory, and it was really fun! Dorks? Yup, they are all over the place 😉

  22. every country has one of these bands…they’ll write a few extreemly catchy songs, yet, whenever you think of them, you get that ‘how could they EVER have gotten signed in the first place’ vibes..
    proof?
    we canucks had ‘men without hats’
    the brits had ‘wang chung’
    the aussies had ‘men at work’
    you yanks have had a few zillion of them, but i digress…
    anyhow, i’m a big fan of any moment that makes one want to start singing old 80’s hits..
    and the fact that your boy wants a copy of Thriller?.
    tres cool man..
    say what you like about that crazy bastard Jackson, but that album had some good tunes on it..
    billie jean and beat it, …still rock…and eddie van halens solo on beat it is still tight sounding all these years later..
    cheers
    ty

  28. But, didn’t Men Without Hats do their job that they made a song so enjoyable that 20 years later you and your wife and singing and laughing to and enjoying together?
    Beats “99 Luft Balloons!”
    No, I take that back. Thats the same thing!
    Beats “Electric Avenue!”
    Oh, shit!

  29. I’m still of the school of thought that believes the Safety Dance to be one of the “greatest songs to ever breach human ears”. I grew up in the 80’s so it has certain kinship.
    I also grew up listening to the Thriller album, a vinyl I still own. And not willing to give up for the world. Or maybe if you can snag Apotheosis’ “O Fortuna” on vinyl… at any rate. It’s Michael Jackson’s greatest produced album ever (I blame Quincy Jones myself) and an album that few will ever compare to. It ranks up there with Greatest Album Ever…. and the Thriller video I think is the undisputed Greatest Music Video Ever. Although Devo’s Jocko Homo ranges in a bit closer. And for pure 80’s cheese check out the FIRST EVAR music video made in the 80s: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s The Message.
    If not for the “Ha-huh-huh-huh”
    Now, if Ryan had said he wanted to buy a Culture Club album, that’s when the worry begins.
    Silliness,
    Dave “Give me tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime….” Leckie

  32. Okay, now I have that bloody song stuck in my head thanks to you and I have to live with it until I can get to my car and put on the radio to get rid of it.
    Grrrr….

  34. Great. Thanks for giving me THAT song to run around my head endlessly for the rest of the day.
    I think I need to push some Rage Against The Machine through my head phones at high volume to blow that thing out.
    WE’RE THE RENEGADES OF FUNK!
    WE’RE THE RENEGADES OF FUNK!
    That’s better.

  35. Damn you Wil Wheaton.
    So here I am, this morning, working away in my little tech job, taking abreak, reading your latest entries, and you have to mention Safety Dance.
    Since then, I cant get that song out of my head…
    All day….
    Troubleshooting M$ Windoze machines with that little song in your head.
    Its evil.
    (Raised fist to the sky) Damn you Wil Wheaton.
    Well, what can I say. Quebecers – French or English, we’re a pretty special bunch…..

  38. I remember the video for this was very strange. Medieval, and with some dwarf playing a lute or something. But good fun.
    The song does appear to have some hidden meaning in it though – apparently all of the songs written by the author have some kind of meaning or moral behind them. Best page I found with an explanation is at http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/8/14/54351/6702
    For a really wierd 80’s song, you should listen to “The Riddle” by Nik Kershaw…

  39. So if you encounter people today humming to Safety Dance, you know you are seeing a fellow reader of Will Wheaton’s website.. Its now in my head as well, for two days! Thanks! 🙂

  41. thanks, wil. the saftey dance finally pushed the theme from the banana splits out of my head.
    it also brought back memories of a car trip in my sister’s pinto. driving up I-5 in no-mans land between sacramento and redding. my then 18 year old self singing at the top of my lungs with my 9 year old niece joining in to the dulcet tones of “i want to rock with you” by michael jackson… hehehehehehee.

  44. 2 Comments:
    (1) As weird as the damned song is, the video is weirder. I think there’s some violation of state, federal, or physical laws involved.
    (2) The whole thing, video and all, is like Pat Boone next to Little Richard, on the weirdness scale, next to the towering strangeness that is “Land of the Glass Pinecones” by Human Sexual Response.

  45. im thanking god that i never heard that one.
    and chester or not, pick up thriller for him. one of my favorite albums, and definately my favorite video ever.

  48. The song I never understood:
    Everybodies working for the weekend-
    Everybody wants a second chance-
    Etc…
    You want a piece of my heart-
    You better start from the start-
    You wanna be in the show-
    Come on LET IT GO!
    It goes from one song to something completely different, unless there is some subliminal message I missed.
    I still live in the 80s..I can’t believe it.

  49. I normally don’t comment, though I thorouly enjoy each entry.. this one.. reminds me of myself and my current boyfried. It is usually a few times a day that we have moments where we are complete dorks. The affirmation from both of us, seems like a reassurance that we are meant for each other. I’m sure that our humor is a wave length that only we can pick up on, but it’s heart warming to hear that you and Anne get along.. in much the same way.
    Safety Dance, I always thought was one of those songs, where they thought they knew what they were doing, but after it was said and done, the only reason we saw it on M-TV was because it was something with a video! While they thought it was a good enough song to release… I wonder what they were thinking when they decided they needed to put it to visuals… ugh. Dancing in grassy fields, seems fun… but with a song about.. ‘Safety Dance’?
    Meh. I never really liked it.

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