Land of a Thousand Dance Moves by Kat Magendie

Recently, while my husband was in Baton Rouge, I cleaned the house (see previous YOG post). But before I picked up rag, vacuum, sponge, I slipped into the player a mix of CD’s labeled “Fun Music.” It’s an eclectic blend that my husband doesn’t enjoy as much as I do—he loves his jazz, and so do I, but there are times I am bored with Jazz, bored of what I also deem as the “Elevator Music,” music he listens to in the car when he’s not listening to jazz. And, my main requirement for the music’s enjoyment, which my husband does not like, is to play it very loud. How else can I experience it properly? It’s the same way in my car—I must turn it up to obtain maximum pleasure from all the thumps and fwumps the music offers.

I push “Random.” And Wait! The first song happens to be one of my all time favorites: Wilson Pickett’s “Land of a Thousand Dances.” Well, one cannot be still when Thousand Dances is playing. I shake, I shimmy, I rotate, I want to watusi, alligator, and mash potato as the song instructs, but I don’t know what those dances are (and I vow right then and there to learn those moves). I do my own wild jittery dance, laughing to beat the band, “Na na-na-na-na na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na na-na-na-na.” Once Dances is over, I begin my wiping and dusting…until! Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” blares from the speakers. Well, how can any woman clean house during Respect? I pretend I am in a karaoke bar with an audience. I point, I pose, I sing out: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Take care, TCB,” and then I gyrate to, “Oh, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me.”

And then it’s back to cleaning. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy shouts “King of Swing!” right as I’m about to vacuum. Well, one can’t vacuum during Big Bad Voodoo Daddy—“When you feel your bones a shakin, and your temperature is risen… .” I do a quieter, but no less energetic, cleaning job until one of my least favorite songs comes on—it is a woman’s strange rendition of “Girl from Ipanema,” except she’s singing it as “the boy from Ipanema” and it doesn’t have the same charm. The music helps the time go by swiftly when I’m cleaning, or driving, or maybe just goofing off. I bow to you Musicians and Singers, thank you all—I blow to you a kiss, a shimmy, a bust-a-hip move...Watch me work, now!