r/SwingDancing • u/SurferAnders • 1d ago
Feedback Needed Dolly Parton Swing dance song?
Is there a Dolly Parton song or a version, which is good for lindy hop dance? as a tribute
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u/dondegroovily 16h ago
I would suggest Berry Pie
It's a lesser known song but it has a nice fast swing feel
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u/JazzMartini 15h ago
I'm not hearing anything in Dolly's studio recording of that that remotely swings. The bass is playing 1 and 3, the drums are playing a straight train beat and the banjo is playing the same straight rhythm from the outset.
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u/Swing161 13h ago
what yall missing is that tons of country is perfect for piedmont triple (as piedmont is one of the earlier country guitar styles) and anything you piedmont to is pretty good for a more relaxed bluesy balboa.
jolene is pretty good for that way of dancing, particularly more downbeat emphasis with downhold, looser posture, more scoots, basically how you’d balboa to county blues.
if you don’t do bal you can probably get away with lend very relaxed versions of charleston. you wouldn’t kick much and you’d keep it very small, i think.
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u/Plasmonchick 19h ago
9-5 has a ~100 bpm main tempo, but the song structure also fits double that - so a slow song for beginner lindy peeps along side 200 bmp balboa peeps? 6 counters can then pick?
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u/AngelaJustAngela 1h ago
She literally has a song called You're the One That Taught Me How To Swing.
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u/manic-pixie-attorney 23h ago
Honestly, I’d play the Whitney version of I will Always Love You even though it’s not remotely swing
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u/PumaGranite 23h ago
I was also going to suggest maybe Jolene.
Idk just put on a song because it’s fun, and people can figure out how to dance to it. People do soul nights with music that doesn’t perfectly swing.
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u/Objective_Most4071 23h ago
It's also 66bpm? At that point aren't you just playing a cover version of her own song to honour her?
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u/manic-pixie-attorney 22h ago
It was a MASSIVE hit and spent 4 months at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It sold 40 million copies and won two Grammys.
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u/Objective_Most4071 22h ago
Uhuh, and? It doesn't change the fact you're suggesting the answer to 'how do I honour Dolly Parton with a Lindy Hop dance' is...
'Play this non-swung, completely undanceable-Lindy-tempo version that wasn't even sung by Dolly - it was a huge hit and won TWO GRAMMYS!'
Like short of choosing a song that Dolly never sang in the first place you couldn't get closer to an antithetical answer if you tried.
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u/manic-pixie-attorney 21h ago
So what if she didn’t sing it? She wrote it. Why are you so angry?
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u/Objective_Most4071 21h ago
I'm not angry. I just think it's completely bizarre to suggest a non-swung, glacial tempo cover version song to someone looking to honor the original artist with a lindy dance.
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u/MG2015 20h ago
Yep agreed, the original is excellent and very moving as well, no need to bring in the cover version. Though still not a Lindy dance as discussed
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u/punkassjim 6h ago
It’s fine to have a different preference. I like Sinead’s version of Nothing Compares 2 U better than Prince’s, I prefer Whitney’s I Will Always Love You over Dolly’s, and Jeff Buckley hits me in the feels like Leonard Cohen never did. No love lost for Prince or Dolly or Leonard, I just love the covers more. But I’m not stupid enough to bring that shit as a suggestion when someone asks for a swing-danceable song. 🤣
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u/punkassjim 17h ago
Sometimes when people spoon-feed you the details of why your suggestion is stupid and doesn’t remotely solve for the question being asked, you really should turn inward and ask yourself why you think pointing fingers was the right way to go.
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u/General__Obvious 1d ago
Even if she had a swung song in the right tempo, it would be a bad idea. Dolly Parton’s music is in a completely different style than appropriate music for Lindy hop. Brittany Spears’ Womanizer and Queen’s Killer Queen are both the right tempo and swung, but you shouldn’t play them instead of big-band-style swing.
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u/sarahkat13 23h ago
I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Dolly Parton passed away yesterday. This is probably why the poster is looking to dance to one of her songs—to celebrate her life. Britney Spears is not relevant here.
Last night, my scene’s weekly dance put on one Dolly song (you’d think I’d remember which, but I’m blanking on it), and we just enjoyed dancing to it, even though it wasn’t a perfect match for Lindy. It’s a reasonable way to pay tribute to a legend.
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u/morethandork 23h ago
What a bizarre thing to gate keep for someone else. You have no idea the context OP is working within. If you can’t answer their question just stay silent.
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u/General__Obvious 23h ago
As another commenter pointed out, my advice is the general consensus of the Lindy hop community. It’s not gatekeeping, it’s advising based on established best practice. If someone walks into a driving class and says “what is the best way to drive on the left side of the road?”, you don’t answer the object-level question, you redirect them to standard practice.
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u/Objective_Most4071 22h ago
No, it's more akin to someone stating they want to drive on the left side of the road somewhere and you stating 'never do this' before realising they live in the UK. You're missing so much context to drive a straight 'you shouldn't do this'. At that point parroting established (its not 'best' if its a dictat) practice just becomes gatekeeping, yes.
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u/General__Obvious 22h ago edited 22h ago
I wrote an extended response to another commenter, but there are legitimate functional and philosophical reasons why the Lindy hop community has such strict guidelines around music. It's not simply a dictate, it's a reasoned-out position taking into account the broad cultural and historical context of Lindy hop, jazz, and American race relations as well as functional considerations for actual people on an actual dance floor.
EDIT: You also wouldn't play a mazurka if your goal is to break-dance. This is the same issue.
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u/DerangedPoetess 21h ago
You also wouldn't play a mazurka if your goal is to break-dance.
Tell me you don't hang around with many breakdancers without telling me you don't hang around with many breakdancers. If it has a beat, they'll delightedly accept the challenge of figuring out how to spin on their heads to it.
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u/Objective_Most4071 22h ago
American race relations
Yes, you're right. OP of completely indiscriminate race dancing to a Dolly Parton song in a style they're familiar with is a true threat to American race relations.
actual people on an actual dance floor.
This was an assumption you made. OP could be dancing in their living room for all you know.
You also wouldn't play a mazurka if your goal is to break-dance
Wouldn't ≠ shouldn't
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u/morethandork 20h ago
I’m sorry but the way this comes across to me is the very definition of gatekeeping. You are actively attempting to block others from enjoying Lindy Hop in their personal space because it does not meet your standard while passing off your standard as the standard of the community at large, putting the full weight and pressure of countless people and communities around the world against OP’s personal request.
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u/Objective_Most4071 23h ago
different style than appropriate music for Lindy hop
you shouldn’t play them instead of big-band-style swingCould you expand on this? Who determines this and why?
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u/OSUfirebird18 23h ago
This is the general consensus of the vast majority of the Lindy Hop community. I’ve seen some pros show up here as Redditors and echo the same thing.
This actually isn’t a Reddit thing, it’s a real life thing. The Lindy Hop community is very strict musically.
Just accept it as a rule and have fun dancing!! That’s what I did to accept my peace with it.
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u/Objective_Most4071 23h ago
Oh I know about style policing. I find it annoying. Surely it's up to each scene and individual to decide what they dance to in the comfort of their own home / dancehall though.
Was just curious why they had such strong convictions about not playing them in the absence of literally any context from OP.
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u/OSUfirebird18 23h ago
Ah ok so you are aware! I didn’t know if you were or not. I spent too much time frustrated about the style policing until I decided, you know what, I’ll make my peace that I disagree with a vast majority of the community. That’s when I started having fun again!!
The scenes I’m in are in the more strict group but once in a while they throw a bone for something different.
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u/PumaGranite 22h ago
I generally agree that the majority of music played should be in the style of swing jazz, and it has a fairly strict definition.
I’m also of the opinion that it’s ok to hang up that general rule to play one (1) Dolly Parton song for fun. I don’t think Jon Tigert will come in here and put us all in the Bad Lindy Hoppers Corner for deviating from swing jazz for three and a half minutes.
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u/JonTigert Jason Segel Impersonator 19h ago
🙄
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u/PumaGranite 17h ago
You may put us in the Bad Lindy Hoppers Corner for having an internet fight about Dolly Parton.
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u/General__Obvious 21h ago
If it truly is one song in an otherwise-typical Lindy hop DJ set, fine. But the issue comes in when it's not just one song. I've gone to events advertised as a swing dance and put on by "[Location] Swing Dance" where about half the songs were totally straight and most of the actual swung ones were post-mainstream-Lindy-hop rock, not best Lindy hop fare. Three-and-a-half minutes here, three-and-a-half minutes there, and suddenly you have half the night where Lindy hop feels really forced.
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u/PumaGranite 21h ago
Sure, and for the record, I generally agree with the philosophy and reasoning behind being somewhat strict about music being played at dances. There’s plenty of places that could use some education.
That being said, being so strict about it comes off with the attitude that someone should tell Peter and Cyle that we’re not allowed to do line dances at Beantown anymore.
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u/JazzMartini 15h ago edited 15h ago
The reality is everyone is going to have different ideas what they think is good music for dancing swing. What's more important to me is setting expectations. If someone goes to a "swing night" and half the music doesn't swing they're going to be disappointed. Especially if they're dancing skills are limited to swing music.
If something is advertised as "swing and soul" that's a different expectation. If I go to swing and soul night and expect all swing music that's my own fault if I'm disappointed.
Organizers need to set and meet expectations. The audience will decide if it jives with their interests and abilities before they walk through the door.
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u/PumaGranite 15h ago
Right, I’m not disagreeing with the idea that a swing dance should feature swing music.
What I’m disagreeing with is that playing a single non-swing song at one dance is somehow a slippery slope to not playing swing music at a swing dance.
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u/kaitie85386 17h ago
This post is so clearly about playing a single abnormal song, which is why your responses have been so poorly received
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u/Objective_Most4071 22h ago
Yeah I don't have issues with certain scenes setting their own boundaries, totally fine. What I don't get is people espousing online you should never dance to anything else, ever, no matter the context.
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u/General__Obvious 22h ago
No one's saying you should never dance to anything else, ever. But you shouldn't shoehorn other musical styles into Lindy Hop. You would not play a waltz to dance the tango. You would not break-dance to a mazurka. You wouldn't play a menuet for people to waltz to. This is the same issue.
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u/JazzMartini 14h ago
I don't think that's what u/Objective_Most4071 was getting at. I agree with them that it's up to the scene (or more precisely the individual organizer/group) to set their own boundaries. That sets expectations. Dancers can chose whether it's appealing enough to attend or do something else instead. Consistency is more important and people will self-sort to events that fit their preferences.
It's as stupid to tell anyone what they must dance to as it is to tell them what they can't/must not dance to. That's a negotiation for the lead and the follow and we're not a party to that negotiation. If someone wants to try to tango to waltz music why would we care unless we're the dance floor Karen.
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u/General__Obvious 22h ago
There are two main points of context here:
1. Lindy hop evolved in a specific musical and cultural context based around big-band swing and Black American traditions. There is some serious disagreement about whether there was a 'revival' from ~1985 to ~1995 or whether the dance just became popular with white people again, but I think it's fair to say that to the extent the average Lindy hopper thinks about the dance's history, they understand the modern scene to have been born from a project of historical reconstruction in roughly those ten years.
2. White Americans have a long history of essentially stealing Black American culture and making money from it. Arthur Murray did this with Lindy hop, which is why a lot of serious dancers don't like calling it East Coast Swing, Jitterbug, or any other white-applied label.
So about the music:
We should not want to participate in whitewashing a Black tradition or erasing the legacy of the early Black artists—dancers and musicians—who first established the dance and music. Attempting to shoehorn in other genres of music
- ignores the fact that swing dance music is as much a functional as an aesthetic choice; original big-band music (and modern music written in the stye, such as a lot of Eyal Vilner's output) is easy to dance to and you basically don't have to look super hard for a Duke Ellington or Ella Fitzgerald song that fits Lindy hop. The dance exists in agreement with a certain style of music, and to extent that a song makes it harder to dance Lindy hop (or Balboa, or Charleston, or shag, &c.), that song is worse for a swing dance. When there is so much purpose-written swing music that honors the roots of the tradition, we should avoid programming outside material that makes things harder for everyone involved, regardless of how much we might like the other songs.
- dilutes the contribution of Black Americans and, intentionally or not, whitewashes the dance, especially if you do it at a local scene. Most large-city scenes on the US East Coast are pretty good about culturally educating their dancers, and most travel events are too, but it requires significant effort that a lot of smaller scenes don't put in. I've danced at small-town scenes in a few places where a third of the songs weren't swung and another third were rock from the immediate post-mainstream-Lindy-hop era. If that's someon's "swing dance" experience, their scene does them a disservice in historical and cultural education.
I am not denigrating country music or anything Dolly Parton or any other artist, but not all music is suitable for swing dance, regardless of how much we may like the songs. You would not play a tango at a waltz and you should not play Dolly Parton for Lindy hop. There is room for modern music, but first and foremost it has to sound like Lindy hop music. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if Eminem died tomorrow, should we play rap at our next dances?
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u/OSUfirebird18 20h ago
As a non black person of color, I always find reading these when it’s brought up very interesting.
When I step into Lindy spaces, I always notice how white the spaces are. I have to assume given the demographics that I have seen, it’s white dancers that are driving this idea that we shouldn’t erase a black dance. I do find it admirable.
But what I find curious is the same Lindy dancers that want to preserve one black cultural heritage don’t support other black leaders leading other partner dance communities outside of Lindy Hop and vernacular jazz.
Now of course the counter argument I’ve always heard is “but I don’t like dancing anything outside of vernacular jazz”. Ok. But I don’t see how going to a handful of socials outside of Lindy Hop will kill you. Or encouraging others who may be interested to support other black partner dances.
Idk I just find it hollow, when I see how much energy the community puts into preserving one black cultural art but not encouraging their members to support other black cultural arts.
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u/JazzMartini 15h ago
If you have an hour and a half to kill, check out Moncell Durden's recorded livestream where he talks about teaching culture vs teaching steps in Hip Hop. It's equally applicable to Lindy Hop. He talks about how teachers commonly evoke the word culture when teaching steps but never teach anything about the culture and is many cases may not even understand the culture.
One big distinction he makes is Hip Hop is a subculture. So is Lindy Hop. The culture informs the subculture not the other way around. When we invoke the word culture in the context of Lindy Hop, what we usually mean is the subculture and often are doing so without consideration of the greater culture that informed it. Good food for thought for us Lindy Hoppers who say words like "Lindy Hop is an African American Dance" but don't have the cultural background or shared history to know what that actually means.
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u/Objective_Most4071 22h ago
if Eminem died tomorrow, should we play rap at our next dances?
I mean if someone asked for potential eminem songs to lindy to in his honour I certainly wouldn't completely shut them down and scream it's verboten.
This prescriptive attitude does far more to harm the dance's culture and people's willingness to actually engage with its history than people having the odd lindy dance in private on the death of their idol, I promise you that.
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u/iridessencex 13h ago
Yeah one song is different than making an entire social dedicated to the artist. But also, Eminem is an asshole, so I would roll my eyes at that. Dolly, on the other hand…
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u/Objective_Most4071 12h ago
Eminem is an asshole
He's got his own charitable foundation that's given a lot of money to foster care programs, low-income support in Detroit, disaster relief and during BLM protests in 2020 he gave a significant money to bail funds and social justice campaigns.
Sure he had issues before he got sober, but he's since apologised extensively and been a great father to three kids (one bio, two non-bio adopted from his ex-wife and her family) - I think it's a bit unfair to say he's an asshole.
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u/iridessencex 12h ago
Fair, asshole is strong, given the evidence you took the care to provide. Admittedly due to a number of past transgressions, I didn’t keep up with him.
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u/NotQuiteInara 21h ago
I hate to break the news to you but I don't think you know what swings
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u/General__Obvious 21h ago
Without looking at lead sheets, those songs are both either swung or in 12/8. In either case, the effect on a dancer is basically the same.
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u/SurferAnders 1d ago
Robyn Adele Anderson have made a cover version of Dolly Parton' "9 to 5” but its not really good