I may be totally wrong but I'm a Dancing Fool

 I cannot sometimes. No matter what age you are or within the decades you grew up in, some things just fall through the cracks in popular culture's floorboards, and we never see them again unless you have to pull up the planking for some reason.

I have done this physically, especially in 1988 and 89, while working on houses built in the 1890s in Claremont, New Hampshire. I have also done this in the figurative sense. It happened most recently this week. I was searching Spotify for a playlist of the 1970s. I did not want to be fed the same old, overplayed thing. No Steve Miller's Joker, Cat's in the Cradle, Hot Chocolate, or Bee Gees. In the 70s rock genre, PLEASE, nothing that braindead FM or satellite radio regurgitates, making the newer generations believe that we did nothing but listen to the same 50 songs repeatedly. We were so much better than that!

Or are we?

One playlist contained many songs that I am sure I have not heard since they were on the billboard charts back in the day. More so, the very existence of these songs was long forgotten, even as far back as 1982.

One song that I have picked on for decades was "Fly Robin Fly" by Silver Connection. According to Wikipedia, in the United States, it rose to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1975, staying there for three weeks. To show you the psyche of American pop culture of the day, it was preceded and succeeded by "That's the Way (I Like It)" by KC and the Sunshine Band for the number 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

I may have said some pretty negative things about these cryptically complex lyrics many times:

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

Up, up to the sky

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

Up, up to the sky

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

 Sylvester Levay and Stephan Prager wrote the song. Stephan, a.k.a. Michael Rolf Kunze. Prager's lyrics are painstakingly fleshed out here (Okay, I'll stop). 

I could pick all day, but these guys were brilliant. Respected music composers in the 1970s and for decades after wrote songs for artists we consider legends and many movie scores tattooed on our collective consciousness; they knew how to do the job. In its first 90 days of release, "Fly Robin Fly" sold 1.5 million copies in the United States alone. I don't have figures for other countries, but the song was a hit on multiple continents.

We have seen other brands of this kind of thing before. Remember the (person) "has his own jet airplane" in Dire Straits, Money for Nothing. Or what about the 16-year-old kid who now drives a Ferrari because he gained millions of followers on YouTube because he simply played Minecraft. And I think I'm so smart! Really, what have I done compared to these folks? Well, I have maintained "artistic principle." That and $5 will buy 3 cans of generic tuna fish at Market Basket.

But this is not why I am writing this...  I am here to talk about something that makes "Fly Robin Fly" look like it has the depth of Pink Floyd's "The Wall."  That can only mean that I am talking about the 1975 hit:

"Lady Bump"

First, let me say that I wish I was joking. According to the ever-wise Wikipedia, "Lady Bump" is a pop disco song by Austrian singer Penny McLean, released in 1975. It was a hit for McLean, who was at the time still with, guess who:  Silver Convention, of course! Two years later, she would leave to pursue a solo career.  Even better, this song was also written by Levay and Prager (Kunze).

Lady Bump was released in June, and Fly Robin Fly (I have also learned the original title was "Run Rabbit Run")* was released in December of the same year. I could make fun of this song and say that Mr. Kunze toned back the lyrics when he wrote “Fly Robin Fly” after writing “Lady Bump” to bring the court back to order. Whatever the case, it, too, became an international hit.

They call me lady bump

lady bump it's no lie - ah

Lady bump

lady bump - just the music takes me high.

They call me lady bump

lady bump uh uh uh ah

Lady bump

lady bump look at me and you'll know why.

That old phrase, "I guess you had to be there" applies. I want to know what we appeared to be like in the mid-70s to those who were not there. As I try putting myself in the shoes of the millennial or the Gen Z'er, I am so thankful that I grew up during that time. I say this even though watching these old performances go down just as smoothly as a 1977 JCPenney catalog.

I love looking up song meanings on the internet. Some contributors are excellent at extracting what has to be the depth of some songs. Others are so far off you want to comment and ask why, but then realize this is not the person to waste time in a debate on something that has no return on investment. In the case of “Lady Bump,” one guess was bump was a reference to a drug, but they were wrong as this song was written ten years before that label; queue up the Family Feud buzzer and big X on the screen, you are wrong.

The other was a reference to the contemporary dance known as the Bump. It was very popular and consisted of the person(s) rotating hips sideways to bump the other person’s hips. I must admit, I suddenly wonder how many folks who did this dance now have titanium hips.

Where there is dancing and hip replacement, no doubt there are injury lawyers:

Have you had a hip replacement after doing the "Bump" as seen on TV's  Soul Train? 

At Smith Johnson and Jones, 

we can get you the compensation you deserve.

The song absolutely references the popular dance. The original video depiction is not quite as much, but in the years since, the dance has been choreographed into the performance, so those who see drugs in every song need to get over it.

Lady Bump is a lyrical depiction of a Saturday night in 1975 at the disco tech, and in this case, the singer is turning her silk, eye shadow, and hush puppies into dollars. It sort of reminds me of "The School for Singing Truckdrivers" commercial in the 80s where "you can turn your truck driving miles into millions" singing songs like:

Drivin' a big truck

Drivin' a Big Truck.

Drivin' a BIG BIG TRUCK.

Lady Bump was intentionally sugar-coated candy professionally crafted for the Pez dispenser du jour. Although I might pick on music like this... a lot. Songwriters Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay really knew what they were doing. They actually initiated the group Silver Connection in Munich and then West Germany. From there, it spread around the world, raining cash.

These men are still out there today and have prestigious careers in Broadway music, movie scores, pop music, and national music concerts to benefit others. Yeah, they knew what they were doing. Some things never change. It was another exercise in giving the people what they wanted. 

When you look at what Kunze and Levay did here, you realize it was business. It was a strategic move to fund their fantastic careers. Thanks to them, a large part of 1970s pop culture is represented forever. Thanks to Spotify, I have another song that can get so stuck in my head for days that I think it will never stop!

*If "Fly Robin Fly" was originally called "Run Rabbit Run," what lyric would go in place of "Up up to the sky?"