Oh no…it’s the Chicken Dance!

DW Dalrymple

DW is an ex-mountaineer now residing in the Palmetto State, a former political hack/public servant, aspiring beach bum and alleged rock-n-roll savant. Forever a student of the School of Life. You can find him on Twitter @BIG_DWD

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11 Responses

  1. Mike Dwyer says:

    One of my best friends is a DJ so he did our wedding. We were pretty anal about what he played because my wife and I are huge music lovers. My primary request was no chicken dance, no electric slide, etc because I didn’t want us to get dragged out there for that nonsense.

    We recently attended a wedding where the RSVP cards had a place where you could request a song. I liked that because it allowed the couple to police the requests and not force the DJ to do it. There’s always that one joker that thinks it’s funny to request a raunchy song or the one he knows was your high school girlfriend’s favorite.Report

    • DW Dalrymple in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

      The RSVP idea is very cool. When it’s a “Prop DJ” I get annoyed. I know they are just trying to liven it up but in my opinion you don’t need a DJ to physically pull you out on the floor. Just play good music. It will take care of itself. Leave me the hell alone! Haha.. thanks for reading Mike.Report

  2. Richard Hershberger says:

    My bride and I, and many of our friends, were involved in medieval reenactment. This came in handy for the (otherwise modern) wedding. Our “first dance” was a pavanne. This is a stately court dance consisting of stylized walking. I am not a dancer, but I can do a pavanne. I was in my cups by that time, but one of my groomswomen teaches this stuff. She placed herself immediately behind me and quietly called the steps to me. A friend indeed!Report

  3. Richard Hershberger says:

    Rock on oldies stations: My working definition of “classical” versus “popular” music is that popular music is tied to its generation, while classical music aims to be timeless. Of course most classical music isn’t really all that good, and gets quietly forgotten. But for the stuff that sticks, it doesn’t much matter whether it was written fifty years ago or two hundred. Some popular music sticks, outliving its generation. At that point it gets reclassified as classical. So you can hear Scott Joplin and John Philip Sousa on a classical station. I wouldn’t be surprised if some Simon & Garfunkel got this treatment, not being fundamentally different from Schubert lieder.Report

    • DW Dalrymple in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

      I noticed the oldies switch 5-6 year ago. A local oldies station in Pittsburgh played 50’s, 60’s and some 70’s. Mostly 50’s type music. Then one day they dropped the 50’s music and focused on 60’s, 70’s and 80’s….basically leaving the Chubby Checker crowd to the ash-heap of time. Now my generation’s music is oldies—but there are many goodies…thanks for reading RichardReport

      • Tom Payne in reply to DW Dalrymple says:

        {Ed Note: Tom Payne is a banned commenter}Report

        • Road Scholar in reply to Tom Payne says:

          You would get both of those songs on Classic Vinyl, Ch. 26. Classic Rewind, Ch. 25 is primarily 80’s stuff. Both of those are Classic “Hits” channels. I’m partial to Deep Tracks, 27, classic stuff you don’t hear on the radio much if at all.Report

          • DW Dalrymple in reply to Road Scholar says:

            I also listen to the same channels. With Lithium tossed in. Every so often Deep Tracks comes up with a good one. That’s where I heard Spirit’s version of “Hey Joe” the other day that I wrote about. We are hooked on SiriusXM…Report

  4. Slade the Leveller says:

    Here you go: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-ultimate-playlist-of-banned-wedding-songs

    I got married 28 years ago, and The Chicken Dance was banned at MY wedding.

    My bride and I took ballroom dancing lessons in the months leading up to our wedding. I never knew how much fun it could be until the Whites showed us the steps. I still love a good waltz.

    Not gonna lie, I hate DJ’s at weddings. The music is usually terrible, and they never take a break. Give me a good ol’ fashioned wedding band any day.Report

    • My wife and I were never particularly good at ballroom dancing, but the lessons were fun. We didn’t get to make use of them at our own wedding, which was a standard rural Kansas thing and the reception was a smorgasbord in the church basement sans music.

      Did come in useful at our daughter’s wedding. Our son-in-law doesn’t dance at all, so for the first dance she and he just sort of swayed and turned in place. My daughter and I had practiced some, but when I went out for the second dance, she had this horrified look on her face and whispered, “Dad, with this bustle I can’t go backwards.” “Not a problem,” I told her, “just follow.” So we did the whole dance with me going backwards. No high heels, though.Report

  5. DW Dalrymple says:

    We went to a wedding in Columbus OH that had a band for the reception. The Conspiracy Band. They were GREAT.Report