Disco Inferno
(Green, Leroy / Kersey, Tyrone) Performed by The Trammps
(Burn baby burn)
(Burn baby burn)
(Burn baby burn)
(Burn baby burn)
To my surprise, one hundred stories high
People getting loose y'all, getting down on the roof
Folks are screaming, out of control
It was so entertaining when the boogie started to explode
I heard somebody say
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
Satisfaction came in a chain reaction
(Burnin')
I couldn't get enough, so I had to self-destruct
The heat was on, rising to the top
Everybody going strong, and that is when my spark got hot
I heard somebody say
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down y'all
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
Up above my head
I hear music in the air
That makes me know
There's a party somewhere
Satisfaction came in a chain reaction
(Burnin')
I couldn't get enough, so I had to self-destruct
The heat was on, rising to the top
Everybody going strong, and that is when my spark got hot
I heard somebody say
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Burn baby burn)
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
When my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Burn baby burn)
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
As strange as it may sound, one day my Dad brought home two records for us kids: Disco Inferno (which was a compilation of disco's greatest hits) and Deney Terrio's Night Moves -- an instructional record, complete with fold-out foot charts, meant to teach us how to disco dance. We were just kids (probably all under 13), so we didn't need to know how to disco, but the nonstop airing of Deney Terrio's commercial ("You can't dance???") always made Dad laugh, and one day he showed up with them. Now, we didn't have so many records, and even though by this time Ken at any rate was developing into a hard rock fan, there was no denying that disco was made for dancing, and dance we did.
Yet, we didn't get very far into the Deney Terrio method, and all I really remember is: "Step left, pivot on left, pivot on right, pull right together. Step right, pivot on right, pivot on left, pull left together. Got it? Good! Let's add the arms..."
There was something vaguely and embarrassingly sexual about disco and disco dancing, and even at that time, it was cool to say that disco sucked, so I would never have outed myself as a disco fan, but even still, Donna Summer's I Feel Love or Anita Ward's Ring My Bell remain happily implanted in my brain as blissful childhood nostalgia. More on the vaguely and embarrassingly sexual...
That summer of 1979, I was 12 and a half, and for the first time since we had moved to Ontario at the end of '76, we went back to PEI and NS for a summer vacation to visit family. I remember stopping in St John, NB to visit Mum's friend Norma on the way, and her daughter Terri-Lynne -- always meant to be a special friend of mine because we were the same age and because of our mothers, even though I had always been shy and awkward around her -- said to me something like, "You were so little when you left, and look at us now, wearing bras and having our periods..." Gah! Who mentions things like that? This was a time when girls at school would whisper BS to each other in the mortifying happenstance that a bra strap had slipped down a girl's shoulder -- what if a boy saw it?? A girl so exposed would hastily rearrange bra straps and shirt sleeves and, red in the face, gratefully thank the eagle-eyed girl who had saved her from certain humiliation. Bras were meant to be invisible and ignored -- and here was Terri-Lynne pointing mine out? And mentioning periods as though that was normal, too? I'm sure I just mumbled some agreement to change the subject. (Burn baby burn.)
I doubt we stayed over at Norma's, so it was probably the same day that we lined up in the massive parking lot for the ferry that would take us over to PEI. This was always a long hot wait, sure to make my Dad cranky, and at some point in the mind-numbing hours, my Dad noticed my carefully filed fingernails (something I rarely am able to achieve since my nails, even today, are always fragile and snapping off).
"Come up in the front seat here, Krista, and let me cut those nails," Dad said.
I tried to protest -- I really didn't want them cut -- but what was I going to say? Admit that I had grown them out on purpose? Like I thought I was some painted whore or something? Dad insisted and I obeyed, letting Dad chop off the nails I had been so secretly proud of. I remember lots of flinching and crying and telling Dad he was hurting me, and he snapped that I was being ridiculous, and in the end, I had neat nubs at the end of my fingers; not a hint of white nail showing. At the time, I assumed that he didn't know what he was doing to me, but now I wonder. Like Terry-Lynne, did my Dad notice that I had somehow begun the leap from little girl to young woman and he was doing his best to freeze me in time? Always a control freak, I'm sure it was hard for him to watch me growing away from him, but even still, that was a terrible and humiliating experience for me that left me feeling powerless and diminished. (Burn baby burn.)
And my last related memory from this time -- when we eventually made it to Nova Scotia and Dad's family, I remember having a wonderful day at the lake where my Uncle Alvin had a cottage (the same lake where my parents have now retired to). There was swimming and boat rides and I was astonished that it was my cousins -- barely a few years older than us -- who were allowed to take out the motorboat, hauling one of their brothers behind on water-skis, me and my brothers hooting and laughing up front for ballast. This was a kind of freedom that we certainly didn't know in our own lives. Later, there was a planked salmon for dinner, and it is this meal (not my Dad's later attempts to match it) that remains anchored in my memory as the finest I have ever eaten. Later at the campfire, I remember my Uncle Alvin saying something to me like, "Well, haven't you ever grown up. You've got your disco hat and everything." Now, I did wear a beige satin hat everywhere I went that summer, but I never thought of it as my disco hat, and as he said this, I scanned Alvin's face for clues about his intent. Was this teasing? A vague and embarrassing reference to all the signs that showed I was making that leap from girl to woman? Was there a hint of sleaziness? But no: everything about his tone was friendly and matter-of-fact. Having only sons himself, and likely therefore not aware of any deeper implications, I don't think that Alvin meant anything more than a statement of fact: I was getting bigger, I had a disco hat, and he was attempting to start a conversation with a niece he didn't know at all. Not missing a beat, I was able to grin, pat the top of my head and say, "Yep, I guess I do. " (Disco inferno!)
And again, in the end, this is just another story about my inscrutable, mercurial father: The man who would impulsively bring home Disco Inferno and Night Moves -- as though there would be some merit in us kids learning to dance like adults -- is the same man who couldn't bear to see me with manicured nails. The same man who, when I finally got my ears pierced at 16 -- something that I thought was my own decision to make; how could I know I was implicitly forbidden to do something with my own body that had never been discussed? -- went ballistic and ended his tirade with a sneering, "One thing's for sure: you're not perfect anymore". No matter what future despoliation my pierced ears hinted at for my father, that "imperfection" was a strange guilt-ridden burden to place on a 16-year-old's conscience. (Let's burn that mother down!)
