Let’s Dance, the album, contains many gems that talk about modern society. “Modern Love,” for example, talks about the word “love” being a slogan for religions and current social institutions to use as an ideology for manipulation of people to believe what they want them to believe. The word “love” is used to “charm” people even though it is a vacuous and nonsensical word when put into the context of this manipulation. “Ricochet” takes this theme further as Bowie writes about how people lose their own souls by believing in empty slogans and ultimately use violence to coerce people into believing what they have been taught to believe. But, overall, Bowie sings about the simplicity of genuine love between two people as the way to combat the false ideologies and manipulations of society in his song “Without You” and his interpretation of Iggy Pop’s “China Girl.” The first song has Bowie singing to his lover and telling her that he appreciates the fact that without her, he would have a hard time facing the world when it gets unbearable. He does not take for granted the love of a woman and without her, he would have a hard time facing reality alone. “China Girl” was put on the album due to Bowie having a great respect for Iggy Pop, who influenced Bowie in many ways- lyrically and vocally. This is another simple song about the love between two people. Iggy uses different symbols such as sacred cows, swastikas, Marlon Brando, and television as a backdrop to the fact that he is in love with his “China girl” and feels powerful when he looks into her eyes. Listening to this stuff instead of Judas Priest’s Screaming for Vengeance or the Scorpions’ Blackout was very eye opening. I realized that there were different ways to express one’s self musically as well as lyrically. Real world political topics could be talked about in songs and everyday subjects such as love and hate could be intellectualized in a more meaningful manner than just wanting to fuck someone or kill them. Yes, Bob Dylan was singing about this stuff in the early 1960’s, but I had not gotten there yet. Bowie was the door that opened up the possibility of music to me. And this is where my education as student of rock and roll and life began.

Let’s Dance inspired me to listen to other bands such as Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, Spandau Ballet, Echo and the Bunnymen, Culture Club, and bands that were more effeminate and artsy than the heavy metal motorcycle leather and whips and chains men that I was listening to previously. I started to get in touch with my feminine side. Bowie, in two interviews in 1972 and 1976, said that he had dabbled in being gay or bisexual in the past. This shocked the world because no rock star ever came out and talked about this subject matter in an interview before. And the homosexual image stayed with Bowie for years even though he was heterosexual and wanted to shock the world by knowing that saying he had homosexual experiences would make great press and give him more attention. The interesting thing is that after he said that and wore his androgynous stage clothes and hair styles during his early 70’s Glam period, the door was opened for men to be more feminine and not tied down to a one-dimensional promotion of their maleness. In high school, liking Bowie or Duran Duran was anathema to the metal kids, who called any guy liking most New Romantic bands, a fag. And I was one of those guys who liked those New Romantic bands and many guys in the metal click would look at me differently since I broke ranks with their fraternity of the stereotypical male. I started wearing different clothes like thin leather ties and emulated the New Romantic hair styles from bands I saw on MTV. I wanted to try something different than just wearing jeans, Nike high tops, and my Def Leppard concert shirt that I got at the show in Cleveland at the Richfield Coliseum. I started to go out and dance at the local teen dance club called The Barn and listening to these new bands and finding new ways of being open by actually dancing and moving to the groove, which most guys did not do. I thought it was great to be able to move and feel uninhibited during the song where all time and space went out the window and just being in that moment with the beat and melody meant everything. I wanted to express myself differently and Bowie and Let’s Dance gave me some inspiration.

One way that I found to express myself and my new found understanding of different worlds out there was through writing. I started writing album reviews for the school newspaper, as I was named Entertainment Editor my junior year. I remember reviewing Black Sabbath’s Born Again album and not giving it a favorable review because the production was murky, the lyric were banal, and I seemed that the band had just put this album out due to having a contractual obligation that needed met. I mean, they had Bev Bevens from ELO on drums and Ian Gillan from Deep Purple on vocals. There were only two original members of Sabbath on the album and in my opinion, it sucked. The school newspaper came out on a Friday and that night I went to a party. I saw some friends and was talking outside and like in a movie, a group of guys who were wearing black leather jackets and were considered the “burnouts” came over. One guy, who was named Frank as I knew him from his being older than me and playing little league baseball in elementary school though he didn’t know me, came over to me and asked me if I was Mike Czech. I said yes and he said that he didn’t like what I wrote about Black Sabbath in the school newspaper. He was yelling at me and getting in my face and his group of leather friends made a circle around me. I didn’t say anything because I was scared and had really never gotten into a fist fight. He was drunk and was bigger than me and after he was done yelling at me, he slapped my face. I stood there and looked at him and didn’t say anything. He walked away and so did his friends and I felt humiliated because other people from the party had come outside to see what was up and saw the incident. I left the party and went home, but felt different than I had when I first went to the party. I didn’t know how to put it into words at that moment when I was in my bedroom listening to Bowie’s Lodger album, but looking back on that incident I can say that slap was very symbolic. The slap was like a baby being born into a new world and being woken up from the comfort zone of his mother’s womb and having to see the harsh light of reality. Likewise, the slap from Frank woke me up to the fact that I was never going to go back to the comfort zone of my metal click friends and accepted ideology of what was considered normal for a heterosexual male to listen to in the Midwest town of Canton, Ohio.

Let’s Dance started this process from realizing that there were bigger things for me to experience in music to being slapped in the face to wake up to new realities outside my comfort zone. As time went on in high school, I discovered other periods of music such as the 1960’s and The Doors and the lyrics of Jim Morrison, who I felt was very literate and inspired me to start understanding that reading literature was very important to being a good song writer. Furthermore, I started understanding that reading and writing were other ways to express yourself and I started writing poetry and song lyrics. Bowie’s voice on Let’s Dance inspired me to be a different singer, too. He had a deep crooning voice and I had been listening to metal singers screaming high pitched vocal wails. I learned how to find my own singing voice and my own vocal register by listening to Bowie. Morrison helped my vocals, too, because he was considered a “haunted Frank Sinatra,” which I thought was great, but it was Bowie who I always come back to as the one who influenced my vocals since I listened to him every day for years. I feel that Let’s Dance was the album that changed my life for the better and when I listen to it today, it still sounds fresh to me and brings back many good as well as hard memories of being an adolescent growing up in the 1980’s. When my band, The 80’s Academy, plays “Let’s Dance” at shows, it’s nice to see people dancing to that song and getting into the vibe of the big beat. I feel at home when I sing that song because it has become a part of me dancing to my own rhythms and finding my voice as a musician, but more importantly, as a human being.

~ Mike