Dancing in the Moonlight

The Uncanny Longevity of The One-Hit Wonder. Tracing “Dancing in the Moonlight’s” 48 year journey from Buffalongo to Orleans to King Harvest to Ann Arbor…

My family has been vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off of the coast of Massachusetts, since my sister was one year old. For the past twenty-nine years they have packed their ever changing, always safety first, “soccer parents” car to the brim with their growing family. My dad has gone through phases, using various sorts of storage compartments used to increase our car’s carrying capacity. Hard and soft shell crates that he puzzle-wrapped through windows, and under bumpers in attempts to securely fastened it all to the roof of the car.

Despite my father’s annually changing storage techniques, my siblings and I will give him never-ending trouble for the one summer when the sack of luggage on the roof slipped loose, littering 5 miles of Rhode Island highway with my brother’s entire summer wardrobe. Talk about middle child problems.

With the car packed full of stinky, running-noise, “Are we there yet?” yelling kids, dogs, luggage, and with our bikes attached to the trunk, we could have passed for a family heading on a National Lampoons Family Vacation; if only Chevy Chase had a Mario and Luigi Brothers looking mustache.

The one constant for those 4 hour car drives, before the invention of in-car movie theatres strapped to the back of the front two seats, and, thinking back on it, probably the only thing keeping my father sane, acting as a family driver, was my Dad’s taste in music. I fell in love with the wailing sound of Clarence Clemons’ saxophone in Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s symphony, 10th Avenue Freeze Out; with the perfect harmony in Electric Light Orchestra’s Evil Woman; the jam-band swagger of Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds; Bryan Adams acoustic guitar in Summer of ’69; and, the brilliance of The Beatles: White Album, and Sergeant Peppers.

I believe that it was these car drives, squeezed next to my brother and sister, 5 and 8 years my elder, my parents, and my dog, filled with the sounds of my father’s mix-tape, forced me to sit, listen, and to better appreciate musicians albums in their entirety, as forms of literature, rather than small, sampled, individual songs. My father’s mix-tapes, filled with his own combination of the new, Dave Matthews, and the old, Bruce Springsteen, (at the time Dave had just released his first three, dynamite albums) that taught me to feel music as an art form in itself.

I have been to countless concerts since those car rides to the Vineyard. I have crowd-surfed at music festivals, I have rolled face to Diplo, and I have sat crossed legged at a free Head and the Heart concert in Brooklyn. I have been the youngest person at a James Taylor – Carole King concert (by probably 40 years.) I have seen MC Hammer rock the Hammer pants on a failed reunion tour, and I have seen Alex Ebert stop an entire concert, walk into the crowd, convince the entire audience to sit cross legged with him and perform the last 2 songs on Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros set list like a third grader at a class “show and tell.” I have seen Bruce and Dave twice (we’re on a first name basis now,) and Dispatch three times. I have seen the Killers before they broke up, when Brandon Flowers was still wearing feathered suits. I have seen The Tallest Man on Earth inspire an auditorium without leaving his stool, and I have seen Cold War Kids stop mid-song to settle rowdy fans down, reminding them, “this is peaceful music.” But my fondest and most vivid memories of listening, and appreciating music, are those car rides to and from the Vineyard, and summer nights spent around the bon fire listening to that set of 20 or 30 songs. And in thinking back on those summers, I have come to realize just how influential music has been in my life.

It is no coincidence that my brother and I created identical Mother’s Day crafts projects in our respective 4th grade Mrs. Spedafino classes. Through my mother’s ears I have learned to appreciate the groovy sound of the Beatles. Through my mother’s hands I have learned to feel the quilts she has sewn. Through my mother’s eyes, I have learned to see the beauty of Martha’s Vineyard. Identical poems, written 5 years apart, by 2 different kids. The one constant in those 5 years was music, the Vineyard, and my parents. And come to think about it almost every lesson, or discussion with my parents ends with some music reference or reminder.

I remember the night before my AP American History Exam, I asked my father to clear up a few decades in American History for me, specifically The Cold War era beginning with Vietnam working towards modern day. And, eventually, as you can imagine, my father’s lesson on American history quickly turned to a discussion on popular music and its cultural implications. I learned about Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s song Ohio and how it became a rallying cry for a counterculture following the Kent State shooting. I learned that the repeated lyrics, “four dead in Ohio,” and “Tin solders and Nixon’s coming,” referred to the National Guard and President Nixon, who were held responsible for the shooting. That moment in history became vividly real to me. I was able to listen to the eerie lyrics, “Soldiers are cutting us down,” and I could feel the social tension. The next day, I sat down to take my AP test, and to my delight I was able to recall my fathers history lesson perfectly, recounting his detail about Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young for three pages.

As I think back on those summers spent with my family on the Vineyard, flashes of memories pour into my head. I can hear my entire family belting out the lyrics to Summer of ’69 mid road trip. I can see the small town of Woods Hole, Massachusetts grow from the comfort of my passenger seat in my parents car; listening to the Five Stairsteps Ooh Ooh Child. I can smell the taste of the mixture of salt water and boat fuel in the air as my father parks our car on the ferry to the tune U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. But while each of these individual memories have their own individual soundtrack, narrated by my father’s mix-tape, when I think back on my childhood in general, and my life so far, one song comes to mind, and honestly, it’s the best song ever written. Dancing in the Moonlight.

But, like most things, if we’re going to discuss my connection to this one-hit-wonder song, then we need to start with a little history lesson. I have a very small family. Thanksgiving dinners consisted of: my parents and three children, my grandmother, my mother’s mother, my aunt, my mother’s sister, and my Mom’s cousins. My other three grandparents died when I was young; my aunt has no children, and my uncle, my father’s brother, lives in Florida. Our closest relatives, my father’s first cousin and his family, live in California. But, growing up, we had our fake set of adopted cousins. While we may have had a small family gathering for Thanksgiving or Passover, we had a massive family gathering annually on Martha’s Vineyard with my fake set of cousins. My parents had stayed in touch with two couples who through a ridiculous combination of it’s a small world after all, and Jewish geography found them all attending the same high school and becoming close friends at Stony Brook University. Arthur and Wendy and their three children live in a Chicago suburb, Sharon and Bert and their three children live on Long Island, not far from Stony Brook, and my parents live in Westchester with their three children. Now we are all grown up, I am the last of the 9 children at college, and all of our parents are empty nesters. But how does Dancing in the Moonlight fit into this picture? Bert is 10 years older than the rest of my fake Aunts and Uncles, and when Bert was in college, his freshman roommate was Larry Hoppen, the eventual lead singer of the band Orleans.

Now the story of Dancing in the Moonlight is even more convoluted.

In 1968, Sherman Kelly wrote the song Dancing in the Moonlight, and recorded it with his band Boffalongo in 1969. Sherman Kelly’s brother, Wells Kelly, was the drummer for the band King Harvest, who released the most recognizable, version of the song in 1972. However before Wells joined King Harvest and released the hit version of Dancing in the Moonlight, he teamed up with Larry Hoppen, Bert’s roommate, to create the band Orleans and later released his own amazing version of legendary song.

This song, refurbished, and re-released, and re-made, and covered hundreds of times became not only my parent’s and their best friends, college anthem, but has come to define my relationship with my parents. It sounds stupid, but I very recently had an epiphany. I have recently come to the realization that my parents are people too. That they don’t have every answer; that they are not perfect; and, that they are going through life for the first time also. I have listened to Dancing in the Moonlight millions if not billions of times, and I have heard that ridiculous story connecting the Kelly brother’s to Larry Hoppen, and Larry Hoppen, and Bert, and Bert to Sharon and Sharon to my parents just as often; but I have only recently come to really appreciate, really feel the song.

In the past four years, I have introduced my friends to the song and I feel a weird sense of déjà vu. The song is perfect for any occasion. Pre-game, post-game, at the bar, at the beach, at the frat house, in the bathroom, in traffic, studying, writing, walking to class, the message doesn’t change, regardless of what version you listen to.

The lyrics, meaning, and feel of the song is eternal, and it’s an incredible sentiment to live by: We like our fun and we never fight/ you can’t dance and stay uptight/ it’s such a fine and natural sight/ everybody was dancing in the moonlight.

So, as my friends and I sit the morning after our late night escapades, the one constant is Dancing in the Moonlight. It was the song of our pregame the prior night, the song we listened to as we returned from the bar, hanging out before we passed out. And it is still playing as we sit, hung over piecing the previous night together.

We sit, and wonder, and talk about our futures. Thinking about our friends who just graduated. Imagining how ridiculous they look in their suits and at their desk jobs.

“Schles’ is definitely killing it, at the firm. He’s incredible at water cooler talk.”

“Imagine, Leo. He’s probably hilarious in a work setting. Yelling `Let’s Goooo!` at the top of his lunges at random times throughout the day.”

And the conversation shifts in tone a little.

“Who’s going to be the first of our friends to get married?”

“Kane. Definitely Kane.”

“Yea, definitely Kane, but he’ll be the first to get a divorce also.”

And we continue on this train of thought, marriage, real world problems, jobs, kids.

“Holy Shit, were going to have kids?”

“Little munsons running around, thinking that we are the perfect human being to model themselves after?”

“Something is going to call me Daddy?”

I remember my mother telling me a short story about how she would frequently walk in on my father, and Arthur sitting on the floor of their college dorm room with nothing but a loaf of bread and the radio in between them. How they would sit for hours, listen to music, talk and toast pieces of bread. Now, that picture of my father and Arthur sitting on their floor is more vivid than it has ever been. Sitting, eating, and listening to Dancing in the Moonlight, the same exact scene that is happening as I sit here, writing this paper.

And now I find myself with the answer to my friends and my next, most daunting question: “How did our parents do it?” “We all turned out okay. I mean, yeah we’re all shit heads, but we’re good people.”

Music. It’s super natural delight. Everybody’s dancing in the moonlight. I think back on those car rides, packed to the brim with children, diapers, dog food, and bicycles, and I remember my father’s mix-tapes. And as I sit here today dreaming with my friends, joking, reminiscing about the past, wondering about the future; about jobs, and girls, and wives and that little dude that’s going to run around looking at me, like I look at my father. I no longer wonder and stress about what the future holds; no longer fear what I can’t control because I will always have my own musical mix-tape, with a little bit of the old, maybe some Bruce, and a little bit of the new, but always with Dancing in the Moonlight.