The big group number at the end of the girls’ dance recital in just over a week is based on C+C Music Factory’s “Everybody Dance Now (Gonna Make You Sweat)”. This has brought up a number of topics.

1. The girls told me that their dance was like “Da Dit Dah Dah, everybody dance” and I knew the song right away, though given the musical predilections of the dance school, it may have been a mash-up of “De Doo Doo Doo, De Dah Dah Dah” by the Police and the “Broadway Melody” sequence from Singin’ in the Rain.
2. I said, “Aha! I have that song.” I did. On two separate discs — the C+C Music Factory album CD, and a CD single with three different remixes of the song. I weep for the misspent dollars of my youth. When did I last have the energy to listen to a six-and-a-half-minute song with 30 seconds of material, let alone dance to it?
3. Daughter #1 said, “I hope the lady got paid a lot of money.” I explained that the lady (Martha Wash) orginally got jobbed out of any royalty payments until she sued. She was replaced in the video by a model who was mouthing her words. Moral of the story: Get paid up front.
4. I also threw two other <sob>CD singles</sob> in the car — Always on my mind/Do I have to? (Pet Shop Boys) and Freedom/Fantasy (George Michael). [Channeling Bill Lumbergh] “Um, yeeeeah. . . .” Gosh, remixes are boring when you listen to them sitting in your car alone.
5. I get the distinct impression that my daughters don’t much like Daddy’s taste in music, which is as it should be. Though D#1’s favorite song in the car now is “A Boy Named Sue” (yes, I’m a bad parent for allowing her to hear the phrase “son of a bitch”), and D#2 favorite is TMBG’s extraordinary rendition of “Istanbul (not Constantinople).”
6. I will listen to Radio Disney with the girls, and occasionally they will play something that’s not from High School Musical, High School Musical 2: Electric Boogaloo, or High School Musical 3: Prison Break. A couple of nights ago it was “I Want It That Way” (Backstreet Boys), which you would think they would like. Alas, it was not to be, given that the song is 9 (nine!) years old. So, when I started singing it, they were all like “DAAAD! Put your hands back on the steering wheel!.”
7. That reminds me of a story from my youth. I grew up with two younger brothers. My mother liked to sing in the shower, and apparently it was very resonant, because one day she started singing, “Where the Boys Are”, and two seconds later you hear three doors SLAM! concurrently.

That’s all I got this morning.