The title track to Bowie's 15th album, "Let's Dance," was produced by Nile Rodgers, who was responsible for the album's funky sound. Rodgers founded the disco band, Chic, and produced hits for Diana Ross, including "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out." He also produced Madonna's 1985 album Like a Virgin.
On the surface, this song is about dancing with a lover, but according to Nile Rodgers, there's a deeper meaning. He told Mojo: "When David wrote those lyrics, he was talking about the dance that people do in life; the conceptual dance of not being honest. He sings, 'put on your red shoes and dance the blues.' Like you're pretending to be happy but you're sad." Because the song had "dance" in the title, Rodgers made sure it could move some butts. He was the right man for the job: Chic's hits include "Everybody Dance" and "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)."
Stevie Ray Vaughan played lead guitar on this song. Bowie was impressed when he saw Vaughan perform at the Montreaux Jazz festival a year earlier. When Vaughan received the call from Bowie to play on the record, he was (although not literally) in the middle of recording his own album, Texas Flood.
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.