From the album
Title: I’m in the Mood for Dancing
Artist: The Nolan Sisters
Year: 1980
Writer(s): Ben Findon/Mike Myers (presumably not
that one!) /Bob Puzey
Genre: Dance/disco
Highest chart position (if applicable) 3 (UK)
Album: The Nolan Sisters
Did I own it? Dear god no I did not!
Album, single or both? Neither
Opinion then: Positive
Opinion now: Positive
These days: You’ll hear it from time to time; it was used - partially - when the girls guested on the anarchic British comedy TV series
Filthy, Rich and Catflap and it crops up from time to time, having been their biggest hit. I said HIT!
There’s absolutely no doubt that every teenage boy who saw the Nolan Sisters, and every one who bought this single, was led by hormones. I mean, for us, this was the first real girl group. The Spice Girls were still ten years away, and though we had the likes of Suzi Quatro (Rowwr!) and Kate Bush to keep us, ahem, engaged, there weren’t really any bands at this time consisting only of girls. And young ones at that. And pretty ones too, at the time. Well, to us anyway. Add in the fact that there were Irish and you could see how suddenly every Irish boy of hormonal age had a poster of them on his bedroom wall.
If ever a song sold on sex appeal alone, this was it. I mean, listen to it: it’s hardly ground-breaking, is it? But the close harmonies, the dancing, the tight costumes… er, excuse me a moment, would you? This all fed into a media push to raise (sorry) these girls to the status of superstars, and for a while it worked. The song is catchy and dancy, happy and upbeat, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but you can’t tell me that anyone who remembers it does not see five beautiful females gyrating around in tight spandex, rather than considering the song on its own merits! It’s a fun song, but for guys my age (17) in strict Catholic Ireland it was perhaps the first real introduction we had to what you might call raunch on, though there may have been others - were Girlschool around at this time? Possibly. Nevertheless, the Nolan Sisters remain a part of my early adulthood, and I can’t help but smile whenever I hear this song. It just brings back such…
pleasant memories.
