Footsteps on the Dancefloor.

When I'm feeling less than great, which I am at the moment, I, like many others, use it as an excuse to be self-pitying and sit around listening to sad music. Unlike your typical 'indie kid', I don't turn to The Smiths* or Belle and Sebastian or whatever. No, I usually turn to melancholy dance music.

During the long post-GCSEs summer I feel in love with two things: the Swedish singer Jens Lekman and Microhouse. The latter is a variation on classic house music that replaces the optimistic vocals and pounding pianos with cut up voices and snippets of sad melodies. I was introduced to this stuff through Erlend Oye's still incredible DJ Kicks mix album. Since then, I've harboured a love for dance music that doesn't mindlessly celebrate the joys of going out clubbing.

I was talking to a friend the other day about the mornings after nights before. He used a word that fitted in exactly with how I felt about them: remorse. I can have an amazing night out, the right people are there, the music's good blah blah blah, but when I get home, and the night's over, I'm usually hit by an empty feeling. I sometimes wonder if this feeling is experienced by most people. I dunno.

So, yeah, melancholy music on dancefloors is brilliant. Arguably my favourite song in this genre is Chic's majestic 'I Want Your Love'. Chic were an amazing band and even the more upbeat classics like 'Good Times' seem, to me at least, to have a hint of sadness underlying them. 'I Want Your Love' is their most obviously 'sad' hit record. The title says it all. I want to look at some of the lyrics that make it work so well:

I think of you and I
Dream of you all the
Time.
What am I gonna do ?

Now, on paper these look trite, just a bit rubbish. But it's the conviction that our narrator sings them with that makes them work. That and the fact that no solution is offered. The question just leads to the chorus ('I want your love/I want your love/I want your love/I want your...love). No answers. Then around three minutes in, the strings come in, then the horns, then the chicken scratch guitar, then the bells toll and the song fades out. In my head it goes on forever and ever. If there actually was a heaven, and there was a nightclub there, this is what would close the night. Every time.

Other songs worth mentioning include Womack and Womack's minor key classic 'Teardrops' (I couldn't really ignore a song with the lyrics 'Footsteps on the dancefloor/remind me baby of you/teardrops in my eyes/next time I'll be true') and Jurgen Paape's timeless microhouse classic 'So Wiet Wie Noch Nie'. Sadly, I can't find a link to the 'proper' version of the song where the vocal is sampled from some dusty old German record, so you'll have to put up with the re-recorded version which isn't as good.

The dancefloor isn't always a depressing place. But it's nice to be reminded that even in sweaty, strobe lit night clubs, people can feel sad.


*Let's be honest: The Smiths aren't actually depressing at all, 'I Know It's Over' aside, and even then it feels weird being a bit down whilst listening to it when Morrissey starts wailing about his mother. Too Oedipal.