I'm on another business trip for Nuance, this time visiting my team in Montreal. On my three and half hour drive up, I spent a little while listening to SiriusXM, and was reminded that there's a really popular song out now called "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon. That title sent me back almost 30 years to this song, a sloppy but fun dance tune from my 1986 album noodle stranger. This was written and recorded during my super-fruitful first leave of absence from my studies at Cornell, when I lived in London for 6 months and set up Cranbury Road Studio in the basement of the flat where I lived. (I've written about this a few times before.)

From what I remember, this was all about the bass riff. If I'd had a drum machine, I'd have set it on disco. But instead, I started this out with my go-to kick drum sound of that studio: a mic close on an 8" speaker as I thumped it with my thumb. Then I added a noteless whack on electric guitar strings in place of a snare drum. Next tracked was the bass part, which was played on a tuned-down Telecaster. Then there were two mostly doubled electric guitar parts, then a vocal part. All done by bouncing back and forth between two pairs of tracks while mixing in more tracks, on a Yamaha MT44 4-track cassette studio. The lyrics have a fun premise: guy wants to talk about some deep stuff, girl says "shut your mouth and dance". Not much too it, and somewhat sloppy, but a lot of fun.

Thanks for listening!

-Andy

shut your mouth and dance

no one talks about religion
until someone makes an incision
then they tear at the skin
destroying whatever had been
every religion is the same
cultures just give them different names 
the means may be worlds apart
but the end is at the human heart

   she said to me 
   shut your mouth and dance

beating, beating
the drum is beating
beating, beating
the clock is beating and my heart
freedom, freedom of movement
freedom of thought
freedom of song in my heart

oh dance with me my girl
oh dance with me my soul

tell me I'm a hippie
tell me I'm a fool
tell me I'm a dreamer
no regard for rules

oh dance with me my girl
oh dance with me my soul
oh dance with me my girl
I don't care any more

   she said to me 
   shut your mouth and dance

©1986 by Andy Wyatt