It’s ONLY rock’n’roll?

After the end of my party a few weeks ago, I decided that my dancing days were more or less over.  I’d put together a couple of playlists, but they weren’t working, so I handed over to Matt, and then Tracey, who plugged their iphones in to the hi-fi and got things going.  But I couldn’t dance to their music.  Oh well, I thought, I am seventy after all, and I’ve had a few good bops in my time.

So, it’s Saturday Night.  I’m at a ruby wedding celebration in the function room of a rather nice local sports club.  Usually, I’m irritated when the loud music starts too soon, when people are still trying to chat and break ice, but I knew just five of the seventy or so present (and one of those consisted of two people I only half-knew), and a few conversational attempts had pushed me towards feeling that I wasn’t going to improve on that, and looking at my watch.  So when the band started up, I was quite relieved.

I listened.  Classic line-up, two guitars, bass and drums.  They started off with some Johnny Cash number, which didn’t augur well, but rapidly moved on to proper rock’n’roll.  I knew every single song.  They were pretty competent – good singers, a capable lead guitarist and a brilliant drummer.  I was shifting towards critical mode – they’d got the vocal timing of the Evs’ ‘When Will I Be Loved?’ wrong, like everyone does, and attributed several Chuck Berry songs to the Beatles – when Caro dragged me onto the dance floor.

Astonishingly, it was ‘Move It’, and I went into dance mode.  I turned into Embarrassing Uncle At The Wedding.  People were gazing at me in amazement.  “How does this man do this?” they were thinking, or “Why?”  I couldn’t have cared less.  I was dancing to real songs, rather than mere beats, however hypnotic.  When the Shirelles sing ‘when the night meets the morning sun’, you think ‘ when the night (da da da) meets the mor(da da da)ning su-uh-ha-un’, don’t you?  And dance accordingly.  Well, I do, anyway.

At the end, I interrupted Linda and Alex, who were for some reason smooching on the dance floor, to say thanks.  We hugged and kissed.  “Thanks for the music”, I think I said.  “It’s ours”, I think he said.