“Dancing In The Moonlight”, which was released by King Harvest in 1972, has to be one of the happiest-sounding songs of all time. Originally though, this song was written by Sherman Kelly, who would probably say otherwise.
In a 2018 interview, the songwriter explained that the song actually comes from a pretty dark place, despite its happy exterior.
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The story of “Dancing In The Moonlight” starts when Kelly was hanging out with his friends in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. The group decided to take a boat out to St. Croix, the largest island.
“My girlfriend and I got very six going across to St. Croix, and when we got there, I was glad to get on shore,” Kelly explained. “And my friends were fine, they went back out on the boat to spend the night, and Adrienne [the girlfriend] and I said, ‘No, no, we’re not going out there.’”
Kelly and his girlfriend decided to spend the night on the beach. When they woke up, they were greeted by a vicious gang of attackers. “I remember being hit really hard, and five guys were attacking us with baseball bats,” he said.
He also shared that his girlfriend, Adrienne, thought she was going to be sexually assaulted and eventually killed.
“Then she said there was this horrible animal noise, this howling”, Kelly said. “And apparently, I saw fit to recover consciousness and attack them.” The songwriter admitted that, seeing as he was in pretty bad shape, he’s not sure how that would’ve been possible.
By some miracle, both Adrienne and Kelley survived, and during his recovery, Kelly wrote “Dancing In The Moonlight.”
Who Originally Recorded “Dancing In The Moonlight?”
King Harvest’s version of “Dancing In The Moonlight” took off in the 70s. However, it also experienced a resurgence when Toploader released their own version of the song in 2000. Several other covers have been done since then, including a country version by Chris Lane and Lauren Alaina.
When the song first came out, it was done by the band Boffolongo. Sherman Kelly accompanied the band on lead vocals and keyboards. When King Harvest got their hands on the song, it would become one of their most beloved hits. Kelly would even accompany them for the song on tour.
And to think, the song comes from a tragic place, through which Kelly was trying to write an alternate reality. “In it I was just trying to envision a world that was a lot better than the one I had experienced,” he shared.
Photo by Sercan Kucuksahin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
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