Dancing in the Dark

Song written by Nicky Chinn and Paul Gurvitz. Sixth track of the album Catch as Catch Can.
Released as the second single off that album, this was the second track Kim recorded which was not written by Ricky & Marty Wilde or any member of the Wilde family (the first one being Bitter is Better). This particular track did not help in re-establishing Kim’s career.

Versions

There are six versions of ‘Dancing in the Dark’:

  • album version
  • extended remix by Nile Rodgers
  • an instrumental version, released on the B-side of the 12″ single of ‘Dancing in the dark’ in 1983
  • a full instrumental version, released by Cherry Pop in 2020
  • RAK mix, released by Cherry Pop in 2020
  • Rough mix, released by Cherry Pop in 2020

Formats

‘Dancing in the dark’ was released on 7″ and 12″. The 12″ format contains the extended and instrumental versions.
See also this page in the discography.

Music video

A music video was filmed to promote the single. It was directed by Tim Pope.
See this page for more information.

Live performances

‘Dancing in the dark’ was performed live during the Catch tour in 1983 only.

Cover versions

Another version of this song was released in the same year by Tony Sherman. Other cover versions were recorded by Patty Brard, Stacey Q and Lynn Sweet.

Kim about ‘Dancing in the dark’

After ‘Dancing In The Dark’, I thought, ‘I can’t carry on much longer like this – I’ve got to get my songwriting together. Not just because the single was a flop but because I wasn’t happy with it as a song and I wasn’t happy wasting my time promoting it when I could be writing. (1)

No-one expected that ‘Dancing in the dark’ would do so bad. Every monday I woke up in fear and informed with my record company if the record had made the charts yet. They reacted coldly. Kim Wilde had disappointed her entourage. And I lost my selfconfidence. No, it wasn’t really a good song. My brother and father went through a less creative period. They own up to that now. And it can’t be a success everytime of course. I still thought I’d failed though. (2)

Why do you think ‘Dancing In The Dark’ made a limited impression on the charts?
I think it has got a lot to do with RAK records. They wanted us to keep coming up with hit singles almost one after the other. They got greedy and failed to recognise that we were her to make music and not 7 inch records. This was one of the reasons why I left RAK. Ricki’s writing naturally suffered y’know there’s a limit to how much you can do. (3)

After ‘Love Blonde’ we did a version of a song called ‘Dancing In The Dark’ and that’s when we hit rock bottom… or rock bottom-ish I should say, because we were still doing quite well in a few European countries.
The singles just weren’t so good for a while. We dried up. It happens to a lot of people. But it was worse for Ricki and Marty because they were the official songwriters. I had this kind of optimistic nonchalance and I just thought ‘Oh well. C’est ia guerre.’ I can’t deny that I must have got despondent about it sometimes. (4)

Credits

Bass guitar, backing vocals: Mark Hayward Chaplin
Drums: Trevor Murrell
Keyboards, bass, guitar, Linn programmes, synclavier, backing vocals: Ricky Wilde
Produced by Ricky Wilde
Engineer: Pete Schwier, Will Gosling, Simon Schofield, Keith Fernley

Highest chart positions

Belgium: 11
Denmark: 3
Finland: 9
Germany: 26 (12 weeks)
Switzerland: 9 (9 weeks)
United Kingdom: 67 (2 weeks)

Interview sources

(1) The Wilde style, No. 1 (UK), 8 October 1984
(2) Kim Wilde takes fate into her own hands, Hitkrant (Netherlands), 3 November 1984
(3) Kim Wilde, Chartbeat (UK), December 1984
(3) “Iā€™m game for a laugh!”, Smash Hits (UK), 24 April 1985


Lyrics

We were dancing
Dancing in the dark
Sweet romancing
Something’s gonna start

He stepped into the night
With his heart open wide
I was standing there
With nowhere left to hide
He looked to me like a shadow
Moving in the night
Then he took a hold of my hand
In the soft moonlight

And we were dancing (dancing, romancing)
Dancing in the dark (dancing, romancing with you)
Sweet romancing (dancing, romancing)
Something’s gonna start (dancing, romancing with you)

I could hear his heartbeat (dancing in the dark)
Pounding in the night (sweet romancing)
I could feel his body (something’s gonna start)
Starting to be kind

With his soft red lips
Made up my mind (dancing in the dark)
His soothing kiss
Was all I desired

And we were dancing
Dancing in the dark
Sweet romancing
Something’s gonna start

We kissed and touched
But it wasn’t enough
To stop this wheel of fire
One step at a time
And I knew he was mine
We were lost in the heat of desire

And we were dancing
Dancing in the dark
Sweet romancing
Something’s gonna start

No way
No way at all
To stop us moving closer
Each look in his eyes
Made my heart beat in time
Over and over and over and over

And we were dancing
Dancing in the dark
Sweet romancing
Something’s gonna start

And we were dancing
Dancing in the dark
Sweet romancing
Something’s gonna start