B-side "On the Shoreline" Genre Dance-rock, blues rock | Released 30 December 1991 Length 4:01 | |
Format CD maxi, 7" single, 12" maxi Recorded The Farm, Surrey; March 1991 – September 1991 | ||
"I Can't Dance" is the fourth track from the Genesis album We Can't Dance and was the second single from the album. The song peaked at number seven on both the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart and received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals in 1993.
Contents
Background
During one recording session, Mike Rutherford first created the main riff of the song he called "Heavy A Flat", to which Phil Collins suddenly improvised "I Can't Dance!" The riff was actually inspired by a Levi Strauss & Co. TV commercial (in the studio, the song was created under the working title "Blue Jeans") using The Clash song "Should I Stay or Should I Go". Originally the band did not think of it as anything more than a joke, because the song was too simple, too bluesy and completely unlike Genesis' style. Tony Banks said in an interview "It was one of those bits you thought was going to go nowhere. It sounded fun, but wasn't really special".
It was not until Banks added the keyboard sound effects that the song took on a whole different feeling—with a slight edge of humour in it—which made the band decide to record it.
Banks also said in an interview that it showed a kind of direction Genesis could have gone in. Opposite to what Genesis has done as general practice, which is taking an idea and turning it into a long or complex composition, it was just taking an idea, and leaving it alone.
Music video
The music video (directed by Jim Yukich) illustrates the artifice and false glamour of television advertisements. Collins commented that the video was designed to poke fun of the models in jeans commercials, and each verse refers to things that models in these commercials do. The ending is a parody of Michael Jackson's "Black or White" music video, depicting Collins imitating the "Panther ending" in which Jackson dances erratically. Banks and Rutherford eventually arrive to escort Collins off the set, at which point he goes limp and they have to drag him away.
"Weird Al" Yankovic also created a parody of the "I Can't Dance" video for Al TV in which he appears alongside the band. He added shots of himself to several of the band shots.
The song created the "I Can't Dance dance" (a series of stiff, stylised motions). Collins explained in an interview that when he was at stage school, that he would see kids that would always use the same hand and the same foot when they were tap dancing, meaning they could not co-ordinate. He then copied their movements and the "dance" was born.
Release
Single releases contained an extended remix entitled "Sex Mix". This was later released on the Genesis Archive 2: 1976–1992 box set retitled as the "12" Mix". The remixers were brothers Howard Gray and Trevor Gray of Apollo 440.
The B-side, "On the Shoreline", was also included on Genesis Archive 2: 1976–1992. The song features a sample of guitarist Mike Rutherford's guitar playing that was captured by Tony Banks during a jam session. The peculiar sound (dubbed "elephantus" by the band) was also used in the song "No Son of Mine." Several chord passages also appeared in "Living Forever."
The "Jesus He Knows Me" CD single also included a version titled "I Can't Dance (the other mix)" with a running length of 5:59.
Live performances
"I Can't Dance" was played live during The Way We Walk, Calling All Stations (with Ray Wilson on vocals), and Turn It On Again tours. On the band's Turn It On Again Tour, it was included as an encore. During live performances, the song was transposed to a lower key to accommodate Collins' deepening voice.
A live version appears on their albums The Way We Walk, Volume One: The Shorts, and Live over Europe 2007, as well as on their DVDs The Way We Walk - Live in Concert and When in Rome 2007.
Rutherford and Daryl Stuermer accompanied Collins doing the walk across the stage.
Ray Wilson continued to cover the song on his solo live album after his departure from Genesis. His version is a bluesier rendition, closer to the original.
Covers
In 2007 a German death metal group called Debauchery recorded I Can't Dance and released it on their fourth album, Back in Blood. This version contains growling vocals and a hard rock sound.
In 2014 the Finnish Metal band Sonata Arctica released a cover of I Can't Dance as a bonus track on their album Ecliptica: Revisited; 15th Anniversary Edition. The band made a promotional video which features all of the band members dancing in cities that they visited during their Pariah's Child tour.