Everybody Dance

This was the first song Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards wrote as Chic, predating even their debut hit "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)." Rogers recalled to NME in 2013: "The Chic concept was a cross between a black version of Roxy Music and the anonymity of Kiss. I wrote 'Everybody Dance' one afternoon. I thought it was too jazzy but I loved it. I played it for Bernard – he loved it too but he said, 'My man, what does it do do do do mean?' I said, 'The same as la la la la.' He said, 'Well, why don't we go, "Everybody dance la la la la?'" I said, 'Because the la la la la era is over.'"

Nile Rodgers told NME that the first album he bought was Impressions by John Coltrane. He added: "I can't remember not knowing about jazz. It was almost like religion. I didn't like religion, but I loved music! But when I was able to buy my own records I bought this. The first Chic song I ever wrote, 'Everybody Dance,' is all based on McCoy Tyner's piano playing there."

According to Nile Rodgers, a DJ he knew at a club called the Nite Owl in the East Village of Manhattan broke this song by playing the 12-inch single over and over. He called Rodgers to tell him the crowd was going crazy for his song; he tried playing "A Fifth Of Beethoven," which was #1 at the time, and they booed, insisting he keep playing "Everybody Dance." (This dates this story as the week of October 9, 1976.) "It had been playing for an hour and a half by the time I arrived, and the dance floor was packed," Rodgers told Esquire. "That's the high I've been chasing ever since, because you have complete anonymity. Nobody knows who you are. DJ drops the needle on the record and everybody just screams." One snafu: Rodgers almost didn't get in because he wasn't dressed for the club. He gained admission when he told the doorman he wrote the song.