Single:
Dancing in the Dark entered the Australian singles chart* on 28 May 1984 and peaked at #5. The song was #14 on the Top 100 of 1984.
Album:
The song is on Born in the USA which entered the Australian albums chart* on 18 June 1984 and peaked at #1.
Songwriter:
Bruce Springsteen
Producers:
Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin, Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt
Record label of Australian release:
CBS
*Kent Music Report / Australian Chart Book. See About.
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band performing Dancing in the Dark at the Hard Rock Calling festival in London, in 2013:
BONUS VIDEO BELOW – an extraordinary rendition of this song by The Voice Norway winner Jørgen Dahl Moe
Songfacts:
This was the last song written for Born in the USA. Springsteen wrote it after his manager, Jon Landau, demanded a hit single for the album. After a brief altercation, he complied and wrote it that same night.
Springsteen wrote Dancing in the Dark about his difficulty writing a hit single and his frustration trying to write songs that will please people. His struggles pour out in the lyric, where he feels like a hired gun dying for some action. He even addresses an industry trope, which he surely heard many times before:
They say you gotta stay hungry
hey baby I’m just about starving tonight
Ironically, the song was a hit single.
Read more: www.songfacts.com/facts/bruce-springsteen/dancing-in-the-dark
Lyrics:
I get up in the evenin’
And I ain’t got nothin’ to say
I come home in the mornin’
I go to bed feelin’ the same way
I ain’t nothin’ but tired
Click for full lyrics
Find more songs to enjoy: Bang a Gong song finder
BONUS
Jørgen Dahl Moe‘s beautiful interpretation of Dancing in the Dark during Blind Auditions on The Voice Norway, TV2, in 2022.
In the week following the broadcast, Jørgen’s audition was viewed more than 500,000 times on YouTube, and his version entered the top 10 on Spotify’s top 50 list for Norway. He went on to win the seventh season of the competition.
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