Thursday, March 16, 2006

All-time Skating Rink Songs

I'm 38 years old. If anyone's close to that age, especially in colder weather climates (I lived in Colorado when I was 9-17 years old), maybe you did what we did when I was young. It was snowy and cold outside, so if we weren't shoveling snow, having snowball fights, or sledding then we were doing something indoors. Roller skating was Youth Activity # 1. I was never more than an okay skater but good enough to pass for competent. I was at least good enough that when the "Snow Ball" came -- where a slow song would play, and all the girls would line up on one end and the guys on the other, and then the guys (usually the guys) would skate across and ask a girl to skate with him -- I wasn't apt to be hit with a liability suit for helping a girl crash, cartwheel, and somersault landing wrong and breaking her neck. I could generally skate around the rink without falling, even holding a girl's hand. Yea me, right?

At the skating rink, songs that might have been cheesy elsewhere were really the fashion. If memory serves me correct, they weren't only the fashion, but they were cool.

The top five skating rink songs of my era, at least to me, were:

5) (tie) Waiting for a Girl Like You (Foreigner) / Whip It (Devo)
4) Dancing With Myself (Billy Idol)
3) Angel Is a Centerfold (J. Geils Band)
2) YMCA (Village People)
1) Hot Blooded (Foreigner)

Some honorable mentions: Everybody's Working for the Weekend (Loverboy), Another One Bites the Dust (Queen), and No One Is to Blame (Howard Jones). Oh! And I shouldn't leave out (Peaches & Herb's) Reunited.

Nowadays, I've been with my kids and I suppose the only song I really remember is Avril Lavigne's Skater Boy. Maybe you guys can help me out with the modern songs since I'm clueless there.

So! What are your favorite skating rink songs? And what am I missing?


3 comments:

Kevin Knox said...

I love the sappy songs, and "Eye of the Tiger". Oh, and "Dance into the Fire" from the Bond movie in San Francisco ... View to a Kill. And the theme from that weak hockey movie,
Sometimes you have to stand in fire
Go to wire
Dreams and desire
They will lead you home.


Youngblood?

Never once had the nerve to ask a girl to skate. :-(

Anonymous said...

Hmm. I broke my right wrist at an all night skate youth activity. :o)

I remember skating round in circles to "Convoy" and feeling like I could fly to "Longer Than" by Dan Fogelberg (sp?). I didn't get into skating when a teenager. Later, right after graduation, I started going to the Christian skate night held by a local radio station.

Ah, what a sheltered life I led. Hubby entered roller disco contests and even won some.

Wanda

Diabolical Genius said...

My favorites were the classics:

No Parking on the Dance Floor
and Funkytown

In the not-so-distant past, I attended a Christmas Kids' Skating Party that my company sponsored, and the skating rink actually played both of these songs...back-to-back.

Well, this was too much for me to resist, and I really got my skate dance groove on. In front of everyone.

Then without warning, while making a turn at a pretty high rate of speed, my feet flew up over my head, and I landed so solidly on my groove thang that my 6-3 200+lb petite frame left a dent in the floor and my coworkers and more than a few kiddies doubled over in laughter.

Thanks for bringing that painful memory back.