"Come Dance With Me"

A livelier crowd

Behind the hotel bar lies a grand glass cabinet, full of spirits. It stretches up to the ceiling and beckons to the clientele, who order drink after drink, either to impress friends and clients, or to drown lonely sorrows. For the human jukebox, though, it is out of bounds; my power to alter the mood at the wave of a finger is too great to risk the detrimental effect of narcotics. Indeed, a drunk lounge pianist is not a pretty sight. So I sit at the piano with my usual glass of pineapple juice, lovingly poured over ice in a tall glass. My present situation is a far cry from the cigarette-smoking, whiskey-sipping pianists of the Casa Blanca era. Launching into Cole Porter’s I Get A Kick Out Of You, I feel the opening lyrics hold a special relevance:

I get no kick from champagne
Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all…

Yet as I survey the bar, it seems that these lyrics are at odds with the atmosphere in the room tonight. Over course of the evening, I would find myself accompanying unexpected bursts of alcohol-induced dancing, some charming and intimate, others squalid and embarrassing.

As I reach a quiet passage in the song, a loud shriek rings out from the far corner of the bar. A smartly dressed, successful looking woman, probably in her late thirties, has cracked open a bottle of champagne. I am told she is the boss of a major company, who are having some sort of celebration here tonight. Despite being the corporate queen in the room, she is clearly intent on asserting herself as a free-spirited party girl. While most of the room quietly judges, her male employees drool over her as she shouts ‘DRINKS! DRINKS!’ and beckons the bar staff impatiently. Suddenly, I feel like a painfully sober jukebox performing for a very drunk crowd.

“Can you play a little louder and drown out the sound of that awful woman?”

I look over to the table on my left, where the voice has come from. An old man and his wife look at me with pleading eyes. Happily, I begin playing a little louder, and they thank me before continuing to quietly sip their drinks.

Within a few moments, the consequences of their request become evident, as the company boss moves into the open space by the piano and breaks into an unflattering dance. She is followed by one of her male employees, whose attempts at seductive dance moves would no doubt be a source of painful embarrassment the following morning in the office. As she dances with her arms in the air and her hips wiggling, perfectly out of time to the music, he mirrors her moves and smiles with lecherous approval and a look of desperate encouragement. This is hardly matched by the others in the room, who raise their eyes and shake their heads. By the time I have finished playing the song, she has fallen flat on her face no less than three times. For health and safety reasons, I follow this song with something a little slower. And for my own amusement, I make that song Fools Rush In. Not discouraged, they continue to dance in the same way they had been earlier, equally out of time and a cause for increasing concern among the bar staff who eventually ask them to sit down. She protests and continues to trip over at regular intervals as her admirer escorts her back to the rest of the party. 


But before she gets to her seat she lets go of his arm and spins round to face me. Having not been acknowledged up to this point, I wonder what this belated attention will bring. Yet nothing could prepare me for what happens next. The woman runs back onto her makeshift dance floor, lifts up her smartly buttoned white shirt and flashes her bra at me, before spinning round and running back to her employees. As the Elvis song I am now singing goes, I’m all shook up. However, unlike the King, I am certainly not in love.

Having finished the song, I sit at the bar and read the paper, ignoring the continuing shrieks from the celebratory corner. The barman returns from the other side of the room, looking worried and a little angry. I ask what has happened.

‘That man. Over there. Horrible racist, complaining about immigration.’

‘That’s awkward, does he know you’re Australian?’

‘No, I just overheard him and his wife mouthing off so I’m putting on an English accent. Don't want any trouble.’

To my frustration, he walks over to the couple, greeting them in a convincing and well-rehearsed Queen’s English. They order their drinks, and I return to the piano. As I do the couple in question get to their feet and begin dancing. Having not warmed to them, I decide to play the part of the reluctant and difficult jukebox this time. As they attempt to dance to the gentle swing rhythms I have begun playing, I jolt them out of their routine by launching into a driving bossa nova. They look disappointed, and stand idly for a moment before trying to alter their routine to suit the new rhythm. Once they manage this, I morph into yet another rhythm, like a malicious driver slamming on the breaks and leaving his passengers flying out of their seats. To my pleasure, they admit defeat and sit down again. Looking over at the bar staff, I see them smile and wink back at me, with a masterful subtlety that is developed over years of working in a place such as this.

For some time, my playing retreats into the background again, and the evening’s designated dance floor remains empty. But before I reach the end of the set, the old couple sitting by the piano ask if I can play the old 1920s classic, My Blue Heaven. It is their favourite song, they say, and the one that accompanied their first dance, decades ago. Now, on their wedding anniversary, they would like to dance to it again. As I begin playing, they get up and sway gently to the music, looking calm and contented. Meanwhile I keep a steady rhythm to accompany their 2-step. I have felt my fair share of cynicism this evening, quietly judging and jolting vulgar dances out of time, but I would not want to bring this dance to a premature end.

Their movements are full of memories, and the timeless song continues as they lilt from side to side, its words perfectly suiting the intimacy of their dance:

You see a smiling face, a fireplace, a cosy room
A little nest that nestles where the roses bloom…
Just Molly and me
And a baby makes three
We’re happy in our blue heaven