Lyrics for Death Of A Disco Dancer as interpreted by weezerific:cutlery

Death Of A Disco Dancer Lyrics
The death of a disco dancer
Well, it happens a lot 'round here
And if you think Peace
Is a common goal
That goes to show
How little you know

The death of a disco dancer
Well, I'd rather not get involved
I never talk to my neighbour
I'd rather not get involved
Oh ...

Love, peace and harmony ?
Love, peace and harmony ?
Oh, very nice
Very nice
Very nice
Very nice
...But maybe in the next world

Love, peace and harmony ?
Love, peace and harmony ?
Oh, very nice
Very nice
Very nice
Very nice
Very nice
...But maybe in the next world
Maybe in the next world
Maybe in the next world

Oh, love, peace and harmony ?
Love, peace and harmony ?
Oh, very nice
Very nice
Very nice
...Oh, but maybe in the next world
Maybe in the next world
(In the next world, in the next world, in the next world)
(In the next world, in the next world, in the next world)
The next world, the next world
Oh ...

The death of a disco dancer
The death of a disco dancer
The death of a disco dancer

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  • 34 Comments
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feinstein
06-19-2002

Rated 0 
if you think Peace
Is a common goal
That goes to show
How little you know

My favorite lyric of all the Smiths' songs.

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BobC
06-21-2002

Rated 0 
I always thought this song was about the AIDS crisis and the contempt people showed thsoe who were dying of it in the late 80's. I remember the AIDS jokes. We've come a long way from those days but at that time it was scary how people thought it was so funny that gay people were dying of this disease. It was chilling. I remember being more afraid of people finding out I was gay than dying of that disease. fortunately I never contracted it!

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SouthHibbing
04-21-2003

Rated 0 
Hey BobC, maybe just use a fucking condom?
Anyway your interpretation is pretty solid. I originally thought it was a lot to do with violence.

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Johnno
06-23-2003

Rated 0 
i'm not so sure- i think its about being depressed. because the disco dancer is supposed to be happy, it can give an outward impression of smiles but it shows the torment inside "Love Peace and Harmony being very nice but in the next world" It also implies suicide as opposed to a disease- the implied next world being better, like asleep for example. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but its my opinion. but the beauty of smiths lyrics is that they can be validly interpreted in many ways. And SouthHibbing condoms are more likely to burst during anal than vaginal sex. Don't ask how i know that, maybe it has something to do with being awake dunring sex ed. lessons.

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feinstein
06-30-2003

Rated 0 
I think Bob's interpretation is pretty accurate. Of course most of the Smith's songs work on more than one level.

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z0MbiE
06-18-2004

Rated 0 
GAY BASHING!!!

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mourningglory
07-03-2004

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Bob, great interpretation. I also might ad that the "rather not get involved" symbolizes the majority of American attitudes towards Aids research and prevention at the time. It was a "Disco Dancer" problem, not worth looking in to.

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z0MbiE
07-04-2004

Rated 0 
i thought it was cause of gay bashing he said "i rather not get involved" they might fuck him up too and disco people(some not all)were gay
therefore gay bashing

other things point it out 2

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Aurora2
10-26-2004

Rated 0 
I think it's just being critical of the sort of "hippie" mentality in a lot of music in the sixties and seventies that like to pretend they were all about peace and love but when it came down to it everyone just looked after themselves.

I think he is just criticising the sentimentality of some pop songs like "Imagine" for example.

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xbehindthemoonx
03-30-2005

Rated 0 
I completley agree with Aurora2

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Riffinton
08-24-2005

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I agree with Aurora2 as well.

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infotainment_lad
09-10-2005

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I think this is saying that everyone seems to have an 'easier said than done' attitude. A lot of people would, theoretically, love to save the rainforest, or bring about world peace, or fight the system, or advocate equal rights, but they never do because it's just too much effort. The example used would appear to be gay rights, and how dangerous it was to be gay at the time, but it really could be applied to anything. Most people at heart would like to fix the world, and improve everything, but they don't, because they'd rather just live their own lives. And yet if everyone did pull together, it'd be so much easier and much less effort required. I think it mocks this sort of attitude.

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Elly Higginbottom
09-19-2005

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Aurora2 put it really well. Its kind of like the pro-establishment anthem for the children of generation X.

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RdeC
12-11-2005

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I think this is a satire of The Beatles. It's got a few features typical of their songs such as the climax at the end, and indeed the lyrics seem to ridicule the naivety of the "love peace and harmony" delusions that sixties bands such as the Fab Four had.

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marquicerise
12-28-2005

Rated 0 
"I'd rather not talk to my neighbour, I'd rather not get involved"

-Poor Cow, by Nell Dun

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npsajustin
03-04-2006

Rated 0 
I thought maybe Moz might have been inspired by the murder of Kitty Genovese. She was a girl who was murdered in Queens in front of her apartment. Genovese was attacked three different time over a period of 30 min. Many of her neighbors (up to 38 people according to the NY Times) heard or saw the attack but didn't intervene because as one one woman said she didn't want to "get involved." Great Song! Like everything the Smiths did.

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bloodstaindstoat
03-09-2006

Rated 0 
I could be completely off, but my first reaction to the mention of disco dancers that was the song had something to do with the disco bombings and the IRA and such.

Disco's go boom = dead disco dancers.
Love, peace and harmony? = Nice, but way not happening.
I'd rather not get involved = things are tense and voicing an opinion wouldn't be in one's best interest.
I never talk to my neighbor = Trust no one.

My interpretation of this song sorta' reminds me of The Talking Head's 'Life During Wartime'.

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rubyoverdiamonds
05-16-2006

Rated 0 
One of my favourite Smiths songs. Morrissey plays piano on this track. It's one of The Smiths most intense songs thanks to the atmospheric music and Mike Joyce's outlandish drumming. Great lyrics as always from the genius that is Morrissey.

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maddsurgeon
05-23-2006

Rated 0 
My first interpretation was that it referred to homophobic violence, but that's probably because I came of age in the aftermath of Matthew Shepard...given the historical context, the AIDS reference is more likely.

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musicalbacon
07-06-2006

Rated 0 
i think this song could be a look inside the mind of someone who was at once part of a peacefull movent or cultural sect with new ideas and loosing all those ideals in order to "grow up." although i'm to young to know about disco's firsthand, it was supposedly something beutiful in a sense that there was no color discrimination, or sexism, if you could dance, you were excepted, and that the person who once believed this would now "rather not get involved." and when that happened, the disco dancer in them had died

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kankurou
08-03-2006

Rated 0 
love, peace and harmony?
oh very nice, very nice,
very nice very nice
but maybe in the next world.

:)

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rikdad
09-03-2006

Rated 0 
I don't know how people are linking the Sixties, Hippies, and the Beatles to disco. Wrong decade entirely. And Generation X wasn't even an idea in 1987! Interpretations have to have a slender basis in reality.

Morrissey says in interviews that he grew up around discos and clubs and there was a lot of violence, skinheads, etc. This song came out in 1987, when disco had ceased to be mainstream, but was still part of gay culture.

1987 is the right time for AIDS deaths to be a major concern. The repeated concern that "peace" is at stake hints more at gay-bashing as the cause rather than terminal illness, but either of those are possible interpretations. IRA bombings... a good observation, but I don't think "It happens a lot round here" would describe those.

Aside from those three, the interpretations listed here are just impossible.

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hoitsmith
12-25-2006

Rated 0 
i dont think this song is primarily to do with aids etc, due to the lines about peace, morrissey's sympathy clearly goes out to the poor and desperate here, though he is too shy to "get involved", this could also be a dig at politicians of the time "love peace and harmony, very nice, maybe in the next world", words have never come so close to describing humanity, just that sentence alone is enough to leave communism as just a nice idea, why wasnt morrissey invented earlier, maybe the world would be a different place

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sivilla
05-07-2007

Rated 0 
one of the most underated smiths songs with a nice dear prudence style feel to it, the climax to the song is fantastic, if you crank up the last couple of seconds of the song you can hear Johnny Marr say "that was great!" and it is truly the most glorious end to any song I have heard. Even Morrissey musically plays his part.

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cs15hammer
06-06-2007

Rated 0 
i love this song. It has moments of quiet and then thunder. The music is great. Morrissey's voice bites.

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