Genre Reggae, pop rock Label Ice Records (UK) Producer(s) Eddy Grant | Length 3:17 Writer(s) Eddy Grant | |
Released 1982 (UK) / July 1983 (US) | ||
"I Don't Wanna Dance" is a 1982 single by Eddy Grant. It went to number one on the UK Singles Chart and held there for three weeks in November 1982. It was later released in the United States, but only reached No. 53 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1983. It was later reissued as the B-side of Grant's "Electric Avenue".
The song expresses Eddy's farewell to Britain being a land of class and colour divisions. Grant explained to the Daily Telegraph on June 27, 2008: "I Don't Wanna Dance can mean that you don't want to go out on the dancefloor or it could mean that you don't want to go along with an idea. That's how I try to write: you take it how you want, but I am basically a writer of protest.".
Written and produced by Grant, it was the most successful of his solo singles in the United Kingdom, and his first number one since "Baby Come Back" by The Equals in 1968.