Songoftheday 5/31/16 - There's a girl I've been waiting to see, and I really get the feeling that she likes me...

"She Wants To Dance With Me" - Rick Astley
from the album Hold Me In Your Arms (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10

Today's song of the day comes from fresh-faced British pop singer Rick Astley, whose debut album Whenever You Need Somebody had scored him a pair of #1 pop hits in the U.S. with "Never Gonna Give You Up" and "Together Forever" along with a top-10 followup with "It Would Take A Strong, Strong Man". Since his American releases were trailing those in his native Britain already, by the time the latter song has done its run of the chart, Rick had already recorded his next album. Done with the same production team of Stock-Aitken-Waterman (the guys behind Kylie Minogue, Dead Or Alive, and Bananarama), Hold Me In Your Arms wasn't much of a stray from his first disc, though the lead single "She Wants To Dance With Me" was pretty bouncy (like their usual remixes), but the "sound of a young Britain" (aka suitable for your grandparents to hear) was in full form. And the video. Ah the video. How the dancers suddenly have roller skates on. Then they don't. And Rick's pants pulled up to his nipples. Ah, the white life.

Rick Astley - She Wants Dance With Me from Rick Astley Is Amazing on Vimeo.


"She Wants To Dance With Me" became Rick's fourth consecutive top-10 pop hit in the U.S. in February of 1989. The song also climbed to #5 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, while the 12" remix single reached #13 on their Dance Club Play chart (his last hit there so far). Internationally, the single went to #1 in Canada for a week, got to #6 in his native Britain, and made the top ten in Belgium (#3), Ireland (#4), Spain (#5), the Netherlands (#8), Germany (#10), and New Zealand (#10).

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Here's Rick performing the song live at the American Music Awards in 1989...

And finally, Rick still going strong in 2014...

Up tomorrow: A hippie chick gets existential.