Everybody’s Doing A Brand New Dance Now

My brother had a very good friend, Simeon Jones, who sadly lost his sight as a teenager. My brother was close to Simeon’s whole family, who in turn doted on our family. I was immensely fond of both Simeon, his parents and his older sister Shelley. In fact for years I hoped my brother would marry Shelley when he grew up.

Shelley had a trendy bedroom that was pink and grey, I thought it was gorgeous. She gave me my first two pairs of earings. I thought she was wonderful. Although she was ten years older than me, Shelley was such a kind and generous teenager.

She used to offer to help my Mum, by taking me to the playground at the local park, while Mum was looking after my new-born baby sister Milly. I was four years, eleven months and fifteen days old, when Milly was born.

I loved the climbing bars (or the monkey bars as my Dad called them) at the playground, and thought myself quite the acrobat. It was a plain old climbing frame that might seem a bit nondescript, but it was an inexhaustible source of fun and adventure. I used to climb right up to the highest bars and then spin myself over – like a forward roll. I had done this little manoeuvre several times, when I yelled the ominous words, “Shelley, watch this!”…next moment I was falling…and landed chin first onto the concrete paving slabs below. Yes, when I grew up there was no sand or chip bark at the play-ground, it was all concrete flooring. Ouch!!!

I still remember to this day, I was wearing a royal blue dress (I suppose you could say it was cerulean, but I only learnt that word today – so I would just say a deep dark blue) with a couple of panels with a pattern of small shapes in red, green and yellow. It was a lovely dress, but as I looked down there was blood all over it. Poor Shelley! She must have been horrified. I don’t remember pain as such, but I do remember being devastated about the state of my beautiful dress. We ran back home. She had to present me to my mum with blood pouring out of my chin. Mum took me straight down to the local Doctor’s surgery, and there, our family GP himself, Doctor G (his surname had at least twenty letters – as a rule if a name has more than twenty letters, I automatically give up even attempting to pronounce it) stitched my chin up. I still have a really cute little scar on the underside of my chin to remind me of that day!

I think Shelley doted on me even more after that calamitous incident at the park. One day she asked my parents if I was allowed to have tea (or dinner) with her family and spend the evening at their home. I would have been around seven years old. I remember that after the evening meal was over and the kitchen and dining room were empty, Shelley put on some music and taught me dance routines. All of the songs we danced to were sung by either Kylie Minogue, The Bangles or Banarama. I enjoyed myself so much. From that point on I was a huge Kylie fan – I still have a massive soft spot for her, but it is definitely her eighties repertoire that I enjoy the most. I grew up wanting to be just like Kylie!

I am sorry, I am just chuckling to myself because I have just seen Fandango’s word-prompt “Neighbour”… Kylie Minogue was also famous for playing Charlene in Australian soap opera “Neighbours”. My parents didn’t want us to watch it, they wanted us either outside burning off energy or inside reading or being useful…they didn’t want us to become glued to soaps and become “goggle-heads”.

The song Shelley played over and over, because I kept asking for it, was my choice for Day Three of the Three Day Lyrical Challenge. For years and years of my childhood this was my absolute favourite song, and it was impossible to listen to it without jumping up and dancing and I took enormous pride in teaching Milly the routine that Shelley had taught me.

I was nominated for the Three Day Lyrical Challenge…by none other than talesfromthemindofkristian who has already established himself as a man of superb musical taste as you can see from his post below:

https://talesfromthemindofkristian.wordpress.com/2018/08/17/3-day-lyric-quiz-day-3-respect/

The Rules:

1 Thank the person who nominated you – thank you Kristian!
2 Share one of your favourite song/lyrics one at a time for three days.
3 Nominate three other bloggers each day.

Everybody’s doing a brand new dance now
(Come on baby, do the loco-motion)
I know you’ll get to like it if you give it a chance now
(Come on baby, do the loco-motion)
My little baby sister can do it with ease
It’s easier than learnin’ your ABC’s

So come on, come on, do the loco-motion with me
You gotta swing your hips now
Come on baby, jump up, mmm, jump back
Oh well, I think you got the knack

Oh, oh, now that you can do it, let’s make a chain now
(Come on baby, do the loco-motion)
Chug-a-chug-a motion like a railway train now
(Come on baby, do the loco-motion)
Do it nice and easy, now don’t lose control
A little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul

So come on, come on do the loco-motion with me
The loco-motion, come on, come on, the loco-motion
Come on, come on, the loco-motion
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on

Move around the floor in a loco-motion
(Come on baby, do the loco-motion)
Yeah, do it holding hands if you get the notion
(Come on baby, do the loco-motion)
There’s never been a dance that’s so easy to do
It even makes you happy when you’re feeling blue

So come on, come on, do the loco-motion with me
You gotta swing your hips now
Come on baby, jump up, mmm, jump back
Oh well, I think you got the knack

Oh, oh, do the loc, do the loc, do the loco, loco-motion
(Come on baby, do the loco-motion)
Do the loc, do the loc, do the loco, loco-motion
(Come on baby, do the loco-motion)
Do it nice and easy now, don’t lose control
A little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul

Come on, come on do the loco-motion
Come on, come on do the loco-motion
Come on, come on do loco, loco-motion with me
The loco-motion, come on, come on, the loco-motion
Come on, come on, the loco-motion
Come on, come on, the loco-motion