Still reeling from the high energy ukulele jam of the “Eighties Extravaganza,” I can’t stop exploring the songs we didn’t get to sing. One of these is the one hit wonder by the group “Men Without Hats.”
The riff in “The Safety Dance” is made up of two C’s an octave apart. If we represent capital C as the lower of the two C’s and the small letter c as the higher of the two, then it’s simply
C C c c C C C c C c
Play the introduction for four bars.
[C] We can dance if we want to, we can [Bb] leave your friends be-[F]-hind‘Cause your friends don’t dance and [Bb] if they don’t dance
Well they’re [C] no friends of [G] mine
I say, [C] we can go where we want to a place that [Bb] they will never [F] find And we can act like we come from [Bb] out of this world
Leave the [C] real one far be-[G]-hind
And we can [F] dance and [Bb] sing [Eb] [Ab] [F] [Bb] [Eb] [Ab]
….
Annie of the Balham Ukulele Society in London had sent me the song sheet for “The Safety Dance” when she learned that I was putting together an eighties ukulele jam session. I was overjoyed to receive it as it’s in the same key as the official Youtube version, which means I can learn it by playing along with the video. However, I was concerned whether we’d be able to fit it into our two-and-a-half hour evening session.
As it turned out, we didn’t get to do all 29 songs in our compilation even without taking a break. It’s unusual that we didn’t take a break, but several ukulele players didn’t want to stop. The eighties beat was going strong, and the momentum moved us to continue.
We began the Wednesday evening with U2’s “With or Without You” — My brother later told me that the band had five-consecutive days of sold-out concerts recently. [This is absolutely unheard of in the classical music world, by the way.] I remarked that the chord progression used in the song was the same as that used in Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” and loads of other pop songs albeit in different keys. The I-V-vi-IV sequence is so popular and infamous, as a result, that there’s even a Facebook Page called “Stop using the I-V-vi-IV progression” and the infamous mash-up by Axis of Awesome. [In fact, I’ve already put together a songbook of such songs for us to do in a future session so we can create our own mash-up.]
When we get together to play the ukulele and sing songs, we not only remember old songs and our personal stories that they evoke but also share interesting trivia about the songs. In the case of “The Safety Dance” many people have wondered what it’s really about (see video below).
We investigate how to do the particular riffs that define the songs, work out the introductions and endings. We usually play each song once, though sometimes if we like it and time permits, we do it twice.
On this particular evening, we were supported by a bass player on the electric UBASS and a folk guitar player who filled the missing bits. This was a bonus! Besides our regulars, we welcomed newcomers (including leaders of other ukulele groups) who added to our musical celebration. The other bonus was cold beer, iced tea and various snacks — which made the jam session seem more like a party than a music rehearsal.
I, of course, was delighted to share the highlights of my life with my college classmates and their family in this 21-year reunion. Earlier, I gave a crash course on the ukulele in hopes that they’d pick up the instrument when they return home to Atlanta.
The following video mentions that disco was dying in the eighties. Ironically, disco works well with ukulele. We are already planning a future session of the “Disco Uke!”