bookmark_borderGuilty Pleasures (take 2)

We all have our dark secrets, our personal foibles and weaknesses of which we aren’t proud. I’ve mentioned one of mine before and, driving to work this morning, I realised I have another.

Backtrack to last Friday night, Louise is packing her bags and I’m sitting at the computer. Thankfully she’s only packing to go away for one night, to Newcastle, with her sister, cousins, nieces and (not yet) sister-in-law. It’s a girly weekend away with shopping high on the agenda, presuming they can still read it after copious amounts of wine.

Louise volunteered to be one of the drivers and asked me to dig out an MP3 CD I compiled a couple of years ago, entitled Ladies Night. Full of divas and disco, Justin and Kylie, with just a dash of Cyndi Lauper and dose of those old stalwarts of the girls night out, The Weather Girls.

As it was a couple of years out-of-date I was spending a little time updating it, adding a track here, moving a track there, and deleting some of the rather more bewildering choices.

With the playlist updated, the MP3 CD burnt and ready for the car, I thought little of it again until this morning. Having dropped Louise at the station, and sick of the rambling nonsense offered on the radio, I switched over to the CD, forgetting that it wasn’t one of the usual ones.

Sidenote here: Louise and I have fairly different tastes in music, so a middle ground is found which isn’t TOO far into chart pop and 80s stuff whilst remaining equally distant from my “weird” stuff although quite frequently my “weird” stuff becomes her catchy tune after time (that whistling track by Peter Bjorn and John, like others I’ve had that on the playlist since March).

Back to the car, and it took me a track or two to realise I was listening to the Ladies Night mix. I quite enjoy a bit of Aretha, and can tolerate the odd Abba track or two so it was only when S Club Seven started singing Don’t Stop Movin’ that I realised not only what I was listening to, but that I really should confess to this guilty pleasure.

My more astute readers (if they are both reading) can probably already see where this is heading so I’ll get the confession out of the road right now. Yes, I sang along at the top of my voice. Yes, I may even have head-boogied a little in the car. Yes, I quite like that track and have danced to it on more than one occasion.

That, however, is not the guilty pleasure to which I must confess.

That honour goes to a disco classic which, like so many of the songs I love, features a narrative and to which I know all the words. Every single one.

Whilst I would also like to pretend that I haven’t, it is also true that I’ve danced along to this track many many times, usually whilst singing at the top of my voice and… well I can’t deny it any longer… I also throw some actions in as well. Ohh yes, this is no foot shuffling Dad dance, this is a full-on display of high campery!

The main reason I can’t deny that I dance like an idiot when this track comes on is that there is (non-digital, thankfully!) video footage of me performing said actions, whilst singing loudly at the top of my voice. I THINK there were all of 6 of us dancing at that point. I may have had alcohol.

The song is a story of heartache, a story of a broken woman vowing to fight on. A disco diva at the top of her form and, allegedly who had a broken foot during the shooting of the video hence why you only ever see her from the knees up.

No prizes for guessing, but let’s see who is first to name my guilty pleasure.

Certain people are excluded from voting, namely my wife, our friend Susan, or Ian’s Mum. All of whom were at the wedding where my performance (that’s what us dancers call it, you know!) and have seen the damning (damn?) video evidence.

OK. I’ve fessed up so now it’s your turn, what’s YOUR musical guilty pleasure?

UPDATE: You know, given the lack of confessions I’m tempted not to tell you which track is my guilty(est) pleasure. But yeah, Lyle guessed right, although I’m not sure how to take his comment: “He’s more Gloria Gaynor than Birley Shassey.”

I (somehow) originally mis-typed the title of this post as Quilty Pleasures. Interesting thought but a different post entirely.