The Meaning, and Writer, Behind Don Henley’s 1984 Hit “All She Wants to Do is Dance”

When Don Henley was embarking on a solo career after the Eagles disbanded in 1980, he called on Danny Kortchmar to help him flesh some songs out. Kortchmar, who had previously played guitar and piano on albums by Carole King, James Taylor, and Warren Zevon, co-produced and co-wrote a few tracks on Henley’s 1982 debut, I Can’t Stand Still, before reconnecting with the former Eagle on his second album, Building the Perfect Beast, in 1984. 

A majority of the album, which also featured contributions from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell (“The Boys of Summer”) and Belmont Tench (“Not Enough Love in the World”) and appearances by Lindsey Buckingham and Belinda Carlisle, was also co-written with Kortchmar, including his “All She Wants to Do is Dance.”

The Meaning

The ’80s were a peak decade for Henley as he continued charting the Billboard Hot 100, mainstream rock, adult contemporary, and other charts. Building the Perfect Beast contributed to Henley’s four more chart singles, including ”All She Wants to Do is Dance,” which was written entirely by Kortchmar.

On the surface, the pop rocker tells the story of a young woman who finds solace, despite the chaotic world surrounding her by dancing. Oblivious to everything, she dances around it all.

They’re pickin’ up the prisoners
And puttin ’em in a pen
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
Rebels been rebels
Since I don’t know when
And all she wants to do is dance

Molotov cocktail, the local drink
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
They mix ’em up right
In the kitchen sink
And all she wants to do is dance

‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘The Ugly’

The lyrics of the song could be a commentary on youth more interested in partying than changing the world and were inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 classic, The Great Gatsby, and The Ugly American, the 1958 book by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer.

“‘All She Wants to do is Dance,’ that’s influenced by The Great Gatsby, where you’ve got this really rich couple that’s oblivious to what’s going on around them,” said Kortchmar in 2013. “It was also influenced by a book called The Ugly American, which is a book about Americans coming into third-world countries and acting like they own the place. So that was what turned me on, although to be honest with you, I didn’t think about it that hard. It just came out.”

Well the government bugged the men’s room
In the local disco lounge
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
To keep the boys from sellin’
All the weapons they could scrounge
And all she wants to do is dance

Musically, the song also came to Kortchmar fairly quickly, along with the lyrics, which he wrote in 20 minutes. “I had the groove and the music going,” he said. “That record was made back when the technology had just started to really take over in music. I had one of the first Yamaha DX 7s, which was a keyboard that was used a ton in the ’80s, but we ended up luckily getting one of the first ones in the United States.”

He continued, “I was fooling around with that and created a track at home while we were making one of those albums. The next morning I woke up and wrote the whole lyric in about 20 minutes—wrote the whole thing. It came very easily. I can’t really tell you the process, just that the music suggested to me what I wanted and then it just came out very quickly.”

Upon its release, “All She Wants to Do is Dance” peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Top Rock Tracks chart.

Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc