I love this song because it is so cheerful – it gets your feet tapping and your body moving (or is that just me?). It’s a song I play sometimes and it works on several levels. On the surface it is just a good time dance song – although if you listen to the lyrics there is a story of a broken romance and someone who is ‘moving on’, determined to forget the previous partner and have a good time.
Then as I sing there is a layer of my own longing for love and an embrace in a dance of life. Somehow I feel it for myself, but I am also singing it on behalf of everyone else who needs that too, so you could say it’s a kind of prayer.
There’s a whole theology around the idea of dance. Some Christians are down on it as being too ‘carnal’ – but that’s exactly what it is – being physical, being in the moment, being with another person, it’s all good.
People dance when they are happy and there is a famous occasion in the Bible where people are dancing in celebration. The Israelites have been saved by a miraculous crossing of the Red Sea and now it’s time to party! Read about it here in Exodus 14:19-21. And let’s hear it for Miriam – in those patriarchal times, a woman, a prophet, a musician, singer and a leader. Go Miriam!
