Released February 1985 Recorded 1984 Label Geffen | Format 7", 12" Length 4:23 | |
B-side "Building the Perfect Beast" | ||
"All She Wants to Do Is Dance" is a song written by Danny Kortchmar and performed by Don Henley, co-lead vocalist and drummer for Eagles. It was released as the second single from Henley's second studio solo album, Building the Perfect Beast, being Henley's sixth single. It was one of Henley's most commercially successful singles.
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Background
The single became a Billboard Top 10 hit in March 1985, peaking at number 9, and also became his third song to top the Top Rock Tracks chart. Background singing for the song was provided by Patty Smyth of the group Scandal, and Martha Davis, lead singer of The Motels.
Composition
When Kortchmar was asked about the song he said "I had the groove and the music going. That record was made back when the technology had just started to really take over in music. I had one of the first Yamaha DX7s, which was a keyboard that was used a ton in the '80s, but we ended up luckily getting one of the first ones in the United States. It's a synthesizer keyboard, and I used it to get that sound that you hear the record starting with."
Release
The commercial U.S. 7" vinyl version has a slightly different intro than the LP version from Building The Perfect Beast.
Critical reception
John Leland from Spin magazine wrote about the 12-inch single version of the song saying "...this mother whomps from the git with punchy electronic drums and a mix that keeps one foot off the ground for a full seven-and-a-half minutes. Henley's post-hedonist vision of apocalypse is twisted".
Other versions
The single All She Wanna Do is Dance by David Guetta and Niles Mason use samplings of this song.