Long Live Disco

 I have a new desk calendar for 2020 that was put out by the History Channel that gives you an “on this day in history” every day.  Yesterday’s “on this day in history” went back to 1980 (the year after I graduated high school).  On February 27, 1980, Gloria Gaynor (and producers Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren) won the Best Disco Recording award for the song, “I Will Survive.”

Ahhhh…Disco… takes me back…  I LOVED Disco back in the day!  I will never forget the night I used a borrowed I.D. to “sneak” into see the R-rated, Saturday Night Fever.  My girlfriend and I waited in line with all the other kids in bell-bottoms with sweaty palms until we passed the check point (back then they used to “card” you for an R-rated movie…now that I can legally watch them, I don’t care to). That was such a memorable movie! The music! The dancing! The dialogue (ok – maybe not the dialogue).

The following year a bunch of my friends and I took disco lessons in anticipation of tearing up the dance floor at the prom. I do remember dancing in my leisure suit. I don’t remember looking anything like John Travolta. Thank God we didn’t have youtube back then, or you all might still be watching it today, and laughing your heads off at us.  We didn’t care at the time, man!  It was disco, and disco was gonna live forever!

But something happened…something mean and ugly happened. I noticed it my senior year in high school. I went to a rock-n-roll concert of some kind – I forget who was because I went to a lot of them – and at this rock concert someone up front pulled out a sign that said, “Disco Sucks!” and they started showing it around, and everyone went nuts cheering.  They eventually handed it up on stage and the lead singer of this rock band started prancing around on stage, holding up the “Disco Sucks!” sign, and it was pandemonium.  I went along with the crowd and cheered (I was young, OK). Inside, though, I was thinking, “You mean I can’t like rock and disco anymore? This stinks!”

I don’t know what happened. Truly! It was something to see. All of the sudden there was a full-blown backlash against disco. Popular rock radio DJ’s started pumping up the hate. People my age jumped on the “hate disco” bandwagon. I think it came to a head the summer I graduated high school – the summer of 1979. During the intermission between games at a doubleheader at Comiskey Park in Chicago, a DJ named Steve Dahl did a “disco demolition night,” and set on fire a big bin full of disco records. A riot ensued, and it got so bad that the rioters wouldn’t leave the field and the Chicago White Sox had to forfeit the second game. 

Ugly undercurrents of racism, sexism and homophobia boiled out as if someone had opened a hellish floodgate. Straight, white people were not supposed to listen to disco anymore. I’m serious.  (I still listened to my 8 tracks and danced – just didn’t bring it up around certain people). It was a really touchy subject…like politics today, but with strobe lights.

And it wasn’t just in my neck of the woods.  It was all over.  If you think I’m exaggerating, and you think it’s just me, consider this: The night when Gloria Gaynor stepped on stage in February, 1980 to receive that Grammy Award for Best Disco Recording turned out to be the last one ever.  The anti-disco backlash caused the academy to remove the category altogether.  It’s like “disco” as a musical genre had been banned. Famous disco clubs like Studio 54 closed…disco just sort of went away. Disco died.  Or did it?

February 17, 1980… “And the Grammy for Best Disco Recording goes to… Gloria Gaynor for I Will Survive!” Yeaaaaa!!  Applause!!!  Cue song… Does anybody else think that it is just super ironic that the last disco song to receive the Grammy for Best Disco Recording is a song entitled “I Will Survive?”  Even the category of “disco” didn’t survive 1980.  And yet…somewhere in the world even as I write this, somebody is lip-synching to that song.  It is like an anthem for everyone who has ever been dumped. 

Are you humming in your head yet? At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side… But then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong…And I grew strong. And I learned how to get along… (Yes, Gloria! Sing it girl!). Tell me you haven’t sung that song before like you were lip-synching for your life! It’s very empowering, really. I Will Survive has been standard fare at thousands of proms, dance clubs, karaokes…and countless movies. 

Some of my favorite treatments of this song in the movies were in Men in Black II, and Rio II(what is it about sequels that make them want to sing “I will survive?!”) OK – if you didn’t see Men in Black II, you got to at least find a clip of the little Pug singing I Will Survive. 

But if you only have time to check out one movie-based I Will Survive moment, check out Nigel (the white bird from Rio II who is one of the antagonists). He sings I Will Survive, with the coolest rap break that include my favorite animal rap lyrics…

If you try to keep me down
I'll just come back stronger
If you try to cut me short
I'll just come back longer
If you beat me at ping pong
I'll just play ping pong-er…

How can you not love the line, “If you beat me at ping pong I’ll just play ping poner-er?” By the way…did I just use the words “favorite” and “rap break” in the same sentence? Holy cow. Or in this case, “Holy Cockatoo.” Rap Music… 

I’m obviously not that good at predicting things. I was the one that said, “Disco will be around forever,” and also the one that said, “Rap music is just a passing fad.” 

Closing thought - As long as we know how to love I know we’ll stay alive. It goes for you – for me… It goes for the United Methodist Church, too. (Sorry, it’s just been on my mind a lot) Will we survive? As long as we know how to love. I still listen to disco, by the way. Long live disco!