Things About Don Henley's "All She Wants To Do Is Dance" That Used To Irritate Me When I Was Younger, But That I Now Find Fairly Effective.

* that synthy guitar or guitary synth riff. It's a great riff, really, in retrospect, but when I was a kid I was like "Come on! Why'd they make it sound all synthy like that! Is it even a guitar at all? I can't tell! If it isn't a guitar, can it even be called a riff?" As a youth I was quite preoccupied by concerns of purity.

* the casual mix of the carefree and the sardonically political.

* the second verse's interpolation of the "and all she wants to do is dance, dance" bit after each line. It just seems intrusive. As compared to the first verse, where each half-couplet functions well as a standalone statement, the second verse's couplets form a fairly cohesive narrative flow - the constant interruption of which is just clumsy and awkward.

* the ambiguous background of the "she" of the song's title. We know that all she wants to do is dance. But where does she fit into the sociopolitical jigsaw of this restive and troubled nation? What of her family? Does she spring from the ruling elite of the natives? From the dispossessed underclass that swells the rebels' ranks? Who are her friends? Has she crossed from one side of the tracks to the other in her quest for pleasure? What are the consequences of her choices? Has her "opting out" made her an enemy of the people's cause? Or is she perhaps a foreigner? And if so...was this really the best country to come to, to dance?

Actually, when I think about it a little more, most of these points still bug me to some extent. But what the heck. It's practically a classic.

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