Saturday Night Fever
With the death of Robin Gibb it is good to look at the effects of disco on the world and it’s future. Disco is clearly about sex and its many varieties. Dancing is the oldest form of letting a potential partner that you are fit and virile and likely to give the partner a good time.
People who knock dancing are usually the same people who find different sexual taste unpalatable. The beauty of the Bee Gees was that they totally re-invented themselves and became the equivalent of social agitators, getting the people to ‘get down and funky’. Using their high pitched voice as a call to arms and as a way of chanting down the walls of oppression.
When Ayatollah Khomeni and Pat Robertson agree on the same thing you know you’ve hit a raw nerve of liberation. In this case it is liberation to sexually indulge in what takes your fancy. Now in Iran and the US Deep South the idea that you can choose the partner you want is not an option. Now after disco men and women are looking to get married to whoever they want. This is the real legacy of disco.
Women discovering the joys of orgasm and same sex relations enjoying the ability to express their love in a non-threatening environment. The line ‘Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight….’ was not written as a jolly little ditty it had an aim and that aim was sexual gratification.
Disco may not be up there with the great classics, but it did it’s job and did it well. It led to untold amounts of ‘knee trembler’s’ , enjoyment and eventually babies. It gave women the opportunity to fully express themselves in a physical situation and it helped gays to come out of the closet.