Dance the Night
"Dance the Night" is a song by British and Albanian singer Dua Lipa from Barbie: The Album, the soundtrack of the movie Barbie (2023).[1] Atlantic and Warner Records released it as the soundtrack's first song on 25 May 2023.
| "Dance the Night" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Dua Lipa | ||||
| from the album Barbie: The Album | ||||
| Released | 25 May 2023 | |||
| Genre | Disco | |||
| Length | 2:56 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Songwriter(s) |
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| Producer(s) |
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| Dua Lipa singles chronology | ||||
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| Barbie singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "Dance the Night" at YouTube | ||||
Background
A disco song that has cello, violin, viola, strings, and bass in its music, "Dance the Night" is about dancing throughout the night despite a lot of sadness.
Before signing on to produce the Barbie soundtrack, producer Mark Ronson received a text from his friend George Drakoulias that simply stated, "Barbie?" Before production, director Greta Gerwig needed a disco song that would be the main song of a dance scene in the movie, so she sent Ronson a playlist of what she was looking for. Ronson and colleague Andrew Wyatt created a track that Gerwig loved and used for dance rehearsals. This song would later become "Dance the Night".[2][3]
"Dance the Night" is two minutes and 56 seconds long.[4]
In the chorus, Lipa sings the lyrics: "Watch me dance the night away / My heart could be burnin' but you won't see it on my face / Watch me dance, dance the night away / I still keep the party running". She compares the tears streaming down her face while she cries to diamonds.[5]
Music video
The music video for "Dance the Night" was released alongside the song. It features a cameo appearance of Barbie director Greta Gerwig, and clips from the movie featuring Margot Robbie, Issa Rae, Emma Mackey, and other cast members.
The video has a pink set, and Lipa learns new choreography in it after discovering a disco ball that had been ordered for the shoot has fallen to the ground.[5] She dances atop a huge Barbie heel, and the cameos happen during a disco party, after which Gerwig leaves her director's chair to support Lipa's performance and question the events that led up to the disco ball being destroyed.[6] Fans said that the smashed disco ball was a symbolism of the end of Lipa's Future Nostalgia era.[7] This theory was supported by Ronson in an interview with Vulture.[8]
Reception
On 28 May 2023, Billboard listeners voted "Dance the Night" as their favorite new release of the week.[9] At the end of the year, Billboard named the song the 15th best song of the year.[10]
Official Charts Company said the song sounded like a return "to the disco-soaked sonics of Future Nostalgia...with a plastic sheen, of course".[1]
