On Episode 12 of the Press Rewind – Prince Lyrics Podcast, I discuss the lyrical content of one of Prince’s least lyrical early tracks, “Sexy Dancer.”
“Sexy dancer, you got me just a creamin'”
I recorded this episode on a cold, wet, dreary March day in Minneapolis while in town for work. I thought it might be a unique opportunity to record a song about Prince’s music in the city where he created a large portion of it.
“Sexy Dancer” was a dance-disco hit in the US (#3 on the Dance/Disco chart), despite its never being released as a single here. DJs simply played the song despite never having been given an officially released record from Warner Bros. Instead, it received both 7” and 12” releases in the UK and Japan, where it was equally successful.
After parsing through some listener feedback for “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” and “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?,” I get into the lyrical discussion about “Sexy Dancer,” which ends up being pretty brief. It’s not a song known for its lyrics, as it’s primarily designed for dancing and playing at clubs, not lyrical dissection podcasts.
The lyrics we get serve the music as opposed to vice versa. Possibly Prince wrote them as simple instructions for inspiration (“Want your body, want your body, dance!”) to wallflowers that aren’t feeling the groove. The rhyme patterns used are simple (screamin’, creamin’), and the implications are s-e-x (“when you rub my body, it gets me so hot”). In essence, this is foreplay put to music, which many people already consider disco dancing as being, generally speaking.
Prince continues the dancing as a sex metaphor when he begins to pant. Panting in the context of this song can be interpreted as an indication of not just arousal but the physical heat and sweat built up from the movements on the dance floor. Either way, it’s clearly designed to make you hot. He instructs his listeners to “DANCE” like a drill instructor in a disco club throughout the song. Or even at a gym, using sexy dancing as a means to burn calories. They say that dancing, and sex for that matter, are excellent cardio exercises.
The goal of each episode of Press Rewind is to:
- Take a track by track look at the lyrical content of Prince’s discography
- Discuss my own interpretation of each song’s lyrics
- If submitted, discuss listener’s interpretations of each song’s lyrics
Thank you for joining me on this journey through Prince’s catalog!
