Track #1
Have you ever been excited to leave your house, venture to the neighborhood waterhole and the place is dead? A couple old fellers nursing Miller Lites, TV is playing Jeopardy or womens bowling. The scene is entirely wrong. A heterogeneous group of people scattered throughout the place, landscapers, a car salesman, a group just left their office needing to vent, a table of youngsters killing time, loners, and drunks. You need to change the vibe and you need to change it quick. You need a playlist to bring the crowd together and bring them to life, as Melanie says, you need some “collective effervescence”. Playing the wrong song here can create hostility and deeper isolation, you must thread the needle. A lot of folks make the mistake of just jumping straight to their destination, dive right in with hard rock or dance music, but you must ease them into it, get the crowd on the same page and build them up. Here’s how you do it if you want to resurrect the dead and turn it into a dance party.
Let’s start off with Dirty Work by Steel Dan. The song is not objectionable, it’s melodic, and even the miserable people in the bar can tap their knuckles on the bar with the chorus:
I’m a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah
I don’t wanna do your dirty work, no more
I’m a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah
Interesting plot to the song, it’s a man complaining that he is being used by a woman who is in another relationship, but he keeps doing it.
Track #2
We have applied the defibrillators, now this place has a pulse. Let’s slowly turn the dial up, expanding the listener’s palate from classic rock to moderately upbeat soul/funk tune, Do Your Thing, Behave Yourself by Tim Maia. This is a song that catches people by surprise a bit, probably didn’t fit nicely in a specific genre to get the airtime it deserved.
Track #3
People are in the mood for music now, folks are starting to nod along, sing to the chorus, and I dare say, curious to know what the next song will be. This is where we set the course to dancing. Whatever your goal is, the first two songs will wake people from jukebox hibernation. We want to start getting a little gyration, get folks tapping their leg, ease them into it, so they don’t even know it’s happening. Too Late To Turn Back Now by the Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose is an irresistible force. You can dance to this song while sitting down, give it a shot!
Track #4
Time to pour cement in the dance night foundation. This is the last song of the first leg of our journey. One more soul song filled with catchy lyrics and joy, Can I Change My Mind by Tyrone Davis.
Track #5
There are folks in the room that are getting nervous that this is turning into an oldies soul session and we need to keep them engaged. We are going to mix in a song from 2018…although that’s now almost a decade old. Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats are an incredible band that bring a bit of debauchery, charm, and rhythm to all of their songs. The song Hey Mama is blends regret and gratitude and has one of my favorite lines in a song outside of Bob Dylan, “You picked a bad time…to listen to me”, it’s repeated with the music distilled down to its essentials for emphasis. The song is more than a simple ode to their mom, but a genuine acknowledgement that maybe we only saw things through our own lens and now more clearly empathize on their mother’s life which was more complex and challenging that they ever imagined as a kid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBEaDbMNiLE
Track #6
It’s time to pull the trigger and move into dance mode. It’s a cover of Blackstreet’s No Diggity. While the original is outstanding, this cover by Chet Faker catches their attention because they recognize the song but in the dive bar environment, chances are many will prefer this version.
Track #7
Pulling another rabbit out of our hat with a superb cover of TLC’s Waterfalls is the Death Cab for Cutie version. Here’s a fun fact, Death Cab for Cutie got their name from a 1967 song by the band, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. This cover song is much better the song from which they took their name.
Track #8
The legacies of accomplished musicians are increasingly becoming more complicated. Michael Jackson, Puff Daddy, and R Kelly to name a few. This remix of the song, Ignition is just too good to keep off the playlist. For those of you who wonder, is this a new trend, Elvis married Priscilla when she was 14 and he was 24.
Pro Tip: Always chose the “remix” version, I mistakenly played the non-remix version and not even close to as good.
Track #9
Adding in some pop music with great vocals by Kenrick Lamar, insanely catchy chorus, and a reminder of Taylor’s popularity, this video has been viewed 1.6 BILLION times. Taylor Swift said the song, Bad Blood, is about a fellow female artist who she thought was a close friend, but then that friend tried to sabotage her arena tour by hiring a bunch of people out from under her. Speculation is that the artist is Katy Perry, perhaps Travis Kelce can broker a truce.
Track #10
You played this song right out of the gate, some trucker would have broken a glass bottle and stabbed you in the neck. Now the crowd is prepared and rolling with it. Did you know that Whitney Houston saved her daughter from drowning in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and then later that night herself drowned in that same tub. Three years later her daughter did drown in the bathtub at her Atlanta home. Now go out and get your dance on!
Track #11
Warren G was walking through Hollywood when he encountered a man outside Rosco’s Chicken and Waffles who looked down on his luck, so he bought a bunch of records off of him, one of them was by Michael McDonald and featured the song, “I Keep Forgettin”, the genesis and foundation of the hit song “Regulators”.
Track #12
The Mickey Mouse Club turned out some serious stars: Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Keri Russell, Ryan Gosling, and Justin Timberlake. Pitchfork declared My Love by Justin Timberlake the number 1 song of 2006 and features T.I. assisting with vocals. Did you know T.I. does not stand for anything? He was originally called TIP, but the record label he was on had another rapper named, Q-TIP, so they had a two tip problem. That’s when TIP became TI, because when he rapped, he would often sing “T. I. P.” and so he just started to leave off the P.
Track #13
Melanie and I were at Maggie’s Pub in West Virginia on New Years Eve, it was exactly as it sounds. There was a dance floor, DJ, and karaoke. There was a massive pit-bull on the dance floor, a man named Roy, who called himself BackStreet Roy and sang songs by The Backstreet Boys on karaoke, there was also a cat…super weird night. As it got close to midnight, they tried to connect their TV to live television so they could watch the ball drop and do a toast. They failed to get it hooked up, we missed seeing the ball drop, so the bar owner (not named Maggie) counted down from 10 and the crowd was unbothered. Deep into the night we requested this song and remarkably, everyone was singing along and dancing. The song is Love In This Club by Usher. Who else was surprised at Usher’s roller skating skills when he performed at the Super Bowl?