Top 5 Songs Ever With “Dance” In the Title

The world is on the mend. Fun times are happening again. Here are the Top 5 songs ever with “dance” in them.

Barbeques, football tailgates, family reunions, traveling, it’s all bringing people together in ways they could not during the pandemic. And people are getting together to do what’s one of the favorite past-times: dancing.

So it got me thinking. What are the best songs ever made that have the word “Dance” in their title? Being a thorough researcher, I watched 246 YouTube videos this afternoon of all songs ever made with the word “Dance.”

To keep up my momentum and get in the mood, I sat in my chair and danced my hips from side to side. It helped me think more analytically about which of these songs are the best ever made. I think better when I move my hips. Don’t you?

From all this fastidious due diligence, I whittled the list down to a few Honorable Mentions and then the Top 5 songs with the word dance in them ever made.

I give you now links to the Top 5 because you really should, as you read this, listen to them and dance. Dancing enlivens the spirit and uplifts and connects people in genuine ways so rarely achieved in most other aspects of life. If no one’s around, just dance by yourself as I often do.

Honorable Mentions

Dance to the Music, Sly & The Family Stone

Good tune. On a scale of 1 to 100 with 100 being a perfect song, this one’s a 78/79. It’s funky and full of beat and great chorus chanting. Plus Sly & The Family Stone is one of the top 15 best band names of all time.

Tiny Dancer, Elton

It’s hard to keep this song out of the top 5 because it’s so soothing and emotional and beautiful, which should give you some idea of how good the songs are that made the Top 5.

Let’s Dance, David Bowie

One of Bowie’s best songs, it always gets people off their asses and onto the dance floor to shake their hips. All three of these Honorable Mentions are good but these Top 5 are exceptional.

Top Five

Five: And We Danced, The Hooters

My guy DJ pointed out, insightfully, that the Hooters cranked out one great hit and this is obviously the one. Just listen to the opening with the banjo and some sort of accordion blending together to make an absolutely beautiful sound that swings you right into the catchy song and onto the dance floor to move around and feel good about life.

Four: Last Dance, Donna Summer

How many times have you been to an event and the band starts playing this late in the evening and you end up dancing? The answer is every time. You can’t sit down when this song comes on. It’s about striving before it’s too late for love and that’s compelling. We all know that emotion.

Three: Dancing in the Moonlight, King Harvest

Opening like a beautiful night under the stars with a slight breeze on a cool evening, this song just kills it when it comes to capturing a vibe that makes you want to dance. It’s not possible to be at an event when this song starts to play and sit in your chair. You have to dance when you start to hear this song.

Two: Shut Up and Dance With Me, Walk the Moon

So audacious and blunt, such a refreshing get over inhibitions theme, this song is about cutting through all the social insecurities and stopping all the excuse-making and just close your mouth and start dancing.

How can you not love that attitude? We need more songs like this one that just tells us like it is and order people to do things that they will enjoy doing and get them to get over themselves and just let loose whatever they feel on the dance floor.

But it’s not just the attitude of this song that’s refreshing. So is the sound and beat. It’s in your face, do this now, bounce around and feel what you’re feeling and get to know how someone else is feeling right there on the dance floor right now. Awesome.

One: Come Dancing, The Kinks

It had been several years since I heard this song and then I listened to it today and it lifted me like no song has in quite awhile (and I’m easy to excite). Everything about this tune – from the lyrics to the shifts in segments to the absolutely wicked original riff to the overall mood – is spectacular.

When I first heard this back in college, I thought it was good. Now many years later, hearing it again with a different perspective on life, I see that this song belongs up there in the stratosphere of really special and inspired pieces of music.

It’s got everything you could ever want in a song: emotion, bounce, beat, originality, variation, intrigue, happiness, storytelling.

Just listen to it and you’ll see what I’m talking about.