Backstory
I had an outdoor fall dance in mind, and I wanted people to leave it with more energy than they brought.
The idea was a forest recharge. Get out among the trees, breathe the cool autumn air, put the week's worries down for a while, and dance. I didn't want the music to be something people merely listened to. I wanted it to help make that change happen.
So I decided the event needed a song written specifically for it.
The title came to me almost immediately: “Alive When We Dance.” Once I had those words, I knew where the lyrics should go. Breathing lungs. Pounding hearts. Feet hitting the ground. The sheer pleasure of having a body that can still move to a beat.
I pictured people arriving a little worn out, maybe not even sure they felt like dancing. Then someone takes a step, someone else laughs, and before long they're all moving together. That was the energy I wanted the song to carry, with drums that keep driving forward and a rhythm that pulls you in.
There's a quieter thought at the heart of it, too. One day each of us will have a last dance, and we probably won't know it's the last one. That might sound like an odd thing to put into an uplifting dance song. But to me, it's exactly why the rest of the song matters.
But not tonight.
Tonight we can still breathe, turn, laugh, and move. I wanted the song to celebrate that while we have it, not wait until it's gone.
What surprised me was how little trouble this song gave me. Most of my music takes a great deal of rewriting and experimenting before I feel it's finished. This one came together much more easily. I knew the feeling I was trying to create, and the song did exactly what I hoped it would do.
It began as music for a fall dance in the woods. But I like that the message doesn't depend on autumn, or even on being in a forest.
We're alive when we dance. So dance while we can.