Dancing in the Moonlight
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"Dancing in the Moonlight" is the title song on the 1973 King Harvest album. The track was released as a single the same year, and it reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100. They released other singles but these were never able to match the success of "Dancing in the Moonlight". The track used a Wurlitzer electric piano thoroughout.
The song was written by Sherman Kelly in 1968, whose brother, Wells Kelly - King Harvest's drummer in the early 1970s - introduced the song to the band. It was originally recorded in 1970 by the American band, Boffalongo. Wells Kelly was also the original drummer for Orleans.
The song's first line, "We get it on most every night" is often misheard as "We get it almost every night"
Thin Lizzy's 1977 UK single release - "Dancin' In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In Its Spotlight)" should not be confused with the King Harvest song, as it is a completely different track.
The song was played as a wake up call for Daniel M. Tani, an astronaut on board the STS-120: Discovery mission headed for the International Space Station, on the early morning of Thursday 24 October 2007.
"Dancing in the Moonlight" was recently licensed by Wal-Mart for their 2008 TV commercial season in the U.S.
[edit] Cover versions
The King Harvest version is often wrongly primarily attributed to Van Morrison or Elvis Costello, due to incorrect labeling on various digital download services. Neither of these artists have actually recorded a version of "Dancing in the Moonlight". The origin of the song is also sometimes misattributed to Toploader, who published a cover of the song in 2000 that reached the Top Ten in the UK Singles Chart, higher than any previous version. A musical number of the song is featured in Richard Wenk's comedic short, Dracula Bites the Big Apple.
This song has been covered by a number of artists. These include:-
- Aswad on their 2002 album Cool Summer Reggae
- Liza Minnelli on her 1973 album The Singer
- Baha Men on 1994's Kalik
- Masters Of The Obvious
- The Keane Brothers — who created a disco version in 1979
- Aerosmith
- Smashing Pumpkins on Disarm
- Toploader on their Onka's Big Moka album
- Orleans
- My Morning Jacket
- Jack Wagner
- Ted Raimi (in the Xena: Warrior Princess musical episode, Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire)
- Fool's Garden
- Switchfoot
