Private Dancer - Single Edit

This song is about either a prostitute or stripper who prefers to consider herself a "private dancer," describing how empty she feels inside. It was an unlikely title track to Turner's wildly successful comeback album, as the subject matter didn't relate to her life or her return to fame. Tina wrote some songs in the '70s when she performed with her husband, Ike Turner, notably "Nutbush City Limits," which describes life where she grew up in Tennessee. But after leaving Ike and going solo, she recorded songs written by others based on their hit potential or inspirational qualities. She used other media to tell her own remarkable story: her autobiography, I, Tina, was a bestseller, and the movie based on her life, What's Love Got To Do With It, was a hit at the box office. In a nutshell, Tina's marriage to Ike quickly turned abusive, but it was years before she could find the strength to leave him. To get the divorce settled, she ceded to Ike's demands, walking away with just her name (born Anna Mae Bullock, Ike named her "Tina Turner" when they started performing, and claimed rights to that name). She was 42 when she started her comeback in an industry that prizes youth, especially among female performers. Through hard work, talent and determination, she overcame the odds, landing a #1 album with Private Dancer at age 44.

Mark Knopfler wrote this song for his band Dire Straits, but realized that it didn't work with a guy singing it, so he pitched it to Turner, who was beginning her comeback. In a 2004 interview with her fan club, Tina Turner described her reaction when Knopfler played her the song: "Mark said this song is not for a man, it's a girl's song. He recorded it but won't use it so when he put the demo on, he sang 'I'm a private dancer, dancer for money, do what you want me to do,' I told him, 'I think you're right, it's not a song for a guy. I liked it a lot. I wasn't sure whether the girl was a hooker or a very classical private dancer but I thought I'd take it."

Turner didn't realize until after this song was released that is was perceived as being about a prostitute. Early in her career, she did private shows (the musical kind) in Texas, so she saw the "private dancer" as someone who performs very innocently at these events. "I can be naive about some of these things," she said in the book Classic Albums. "I took it because it was an unusual song. I'd never sung a song like it."