Save The Last Dance For Me - Two Left Feet

I was never the dancer! I was more the boy/teenager happily leaning against the wall with a bottle of pop in hand happy and content building up to the possibility of finding the courage to make a move for the dance floor. It felt like going over the top in the trenches in World War I attempting to cross No Man’s Land to face the enemy guns and certain death or in this situation the dreaded brush off. I have felt that pain, the brush off not going over the top.

Certain death for your happy wall fly was to catch the eye of some girl think you are being beckoned on for a dance only someone else to beat you to her or she walk straight passed you leaving you stranded on the dancefloor. Leaving you to make out you were walking over to the other side of the floor a social situation more stressful and ripe for humiliation and embarrassment it is a minefield.

But the humiliation is nothing compared to the last dance ‘the slowie’ or ‘smoochy dance’ if you picked a girl your friends would think it was a declaration of love and future marriage as we tended to be so immature back then. Getting that last dance was full of dangers with boys/teenagers marking their territory and more than once, I have seen fights especially if there was a mix of boys from different parts of your estate or foreigners from outside the area.

The hot girls were always in demand and hotly fought over they rarely had a chance to sit down with demand the poor things leaving the wallflowers like me watching on. Remember the film Quadrophenia and Stings character ‘Ace Face’ king of the dance floor who would not want to be that cool. I was not.

Are but this is my memory I was toxic to dancing I was born with two left feet, which were ok in any other environment but not on the dance floor. However, I could just about get away with the old slowie but it is finding your partner is the thing. You could scout around for potential candidates and build up some dutch courage minus the alcohol and not looking to keen which I was told made you look desperate.

But occasionally! Well once I was lucky, one night and I got a yes. I still remember her, dulcet tones and the record. Thinking about it, I will not name her, but she pulled me saying, “Well ok then”, and the record was ‘Daydreamer’ David Cassidy. Of course, I would have cared if she had turned me down it was just good to get that last dance virginity out of the way like your first kiss and other milestones before reaching manhood. I could now stand back looking on enviously on the jammy bastards who had managed to score a dance with little effort knowing I did not care anymore.

Briefly, the last dance was about the chance of a date or a phone number but in the seventies home phones were not commonplace. It was tough dating back then with no mobile phones or internet but we did manage.