Welcome to wedding season. That time of year when friends and families are getting married. Maybe you’re the one getting married. Last June I was lucky enough to get married for the second and hopefully last time in my life. I mean I want another wedding, but not with another person. I absolutely love weddings! Maybe it’s the rom-com diet I consumed as a kid? Maybe it’s because growing up that was one of the most popular sanctioned celebrations for Jehovah Witnesses? Maybe it’s because I’m a romantic at heart, but maybe it’s because I’ve spent years in and out of the wedding industrial complex. I started DJing weddings in my teens, as an assistant at first, but soon I’d do solo parties with a makeshift sound system, who’s components didn’t match each other. Since those early teen days, I’ve DJed multiple weddings and also spent time bartending at a popular wedding venue in Brooklyn.
By the time this essay is published, my spouse and I would have just attended the union of our dear friend’s Sarah and Devon. As I type this we’re sitting on JetBlue flight 679, non-stop from JFK to Milwaukee. We’re excited to visit Milwaukee for the first time, and to celebrate our friend’s marriage. This week I want to honor them by sharing my favorite wedding album. Wedding albums are a tricky business. There are many great songs to play at weddings, but not many entire albums that fit such an event, as it’s really not fun listening to a single artist’s album during a wedding. The album I’m choosing today is a movie soundtrack that I’ve let ride at countless weddings, mostly during dinner service. For dinner service you want something mellow, exciting and romantic. Something chill enough to listen to as background music while you chat and chew, but nothing too slow or boring, as you’re prepping people for the dance floor. I used to come up with playlists for dinner service, until I discovered the perfect wedding soundtrack; Dirty Dancing.
No weddings take place in the film, but the soundtrack has that summertime Catskills vibe that makes you feel a wedding can spontaneously burst out at any given moment, along with some sick Mambo dancing. I first watched the movie when I was way too young to understand the implications of Robbie getting Penny pregnant and then stating that she and her class don’t matter the way the Ivy league servers and their cohorts matter. I was too young to understand that in 1963 Penny needed $250 to pay for an abortion from a hack doctor, and then needed to get saved by Jerry Orbach’s Doctor Jake Houseman. As the child of a Dominican immigrant superintendent of a very wealthy building, I understood class, but maybe not classes amongst white people. What I did understand was the beauty of the dancing, the magic of the romance and the rehearsal montages. I’m a sucker for 80’s training montages. I don’t remember the first time I saw this movie, but I do remember being a kid and borrowing VHS tapes from my neighbor’s impressive library. He would record three movies onto one tape and I would borrow three tapes at a time and play them on repeat. I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but I think the tape with Dirty Dancing also had Adventures in Babysitting, and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I would watch a tape and immediately rewind them and fire them back up. I especially remember watching the Love Is Strange scene with Baby and Johnny lipsyncing the talky bridge bit of the song, and crawling to each other all sensual like, before getting interrupted and separating, trying to keep their affair a secret. I understood that some love needed to be secret. Although I didn’t fully understand why, I knew this love had to be forbidden. Again I was far too young to explore these themes by myself, or with cousins and friends who were about the same age. Today when I think back I think our childhoods were definitely over sexualized, but that’s how we came up. Thirty-something years later, I think most people would be horrified by what we were exposed to, but that’s how I became me and I don’t regret any of it. We were left to our own devices and that gave us a greater sense of survival and independence.
I rewatched the movie on the rest of the flight and now it’s a few hours before the wedding and I’m in a hotel lobby typing and listing the soundtrack on repeat, trying to capture the enchantment of these songs put together in this collection, and the feeling of 1960’s summer in the Borscht Belt. The trick was to mix songs from the period the movie is set in, and songs from when the movie was made. In my youth I really couldn’t tell the difference, and now while I know that some songs are from the late 50’s and early 60’s, they all feel like they’re from the same exact period in my life. This album has become so ubiquitous in my life, that when I hear any song from it, I immediately expect the next song on the album to play as well. They all belong together now. These songs by Bill Medley, Jennifer Warnes, The Ronettes, Eric Carmen, Mickey & Sylvia and the late great Patrick Swayze all belong in the same collection forevermore. That’s some real magic right there and they all belong in most weddings with no skips. I own the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack (1987) and the follow up album More Dirty Dancing (1988), but never got Ultimate Dirty Dancing (2003), which contains every song in the order they appear in the film. Today I’ll be taking you through the original 1987 release, but please go and listen to all of it. I promise it will make for a perfect Sunday morning.
Side One
(I've Had) The Time of My Life (1987) - Bill Medley, Jennifer Warnes
The first song from the album is also the big show stopper at the end of the film; the talent show. In the film it’s the moment when Johnny returns from a recent exile and interrupts the bad performance on stage and profess his feelings for Baby and they do the dance they’ve been practicing most of the movie and they nail the lift, then Baby’s dad finally accepts Johnny and everyone in the crowd start dancing, and this right here has that real wedding feel. Casey, my spouse, and I love this song and love doing the lift. We don’t know the rest of the steps, but when that crescendo hits, Casey runs towards me and I lift her up and the crowd goes wild. I’m writing this part after the wedding and while we cut the rug the whole way up, the song did not play and we did not do the lift. I’m definitely okay with that. The last time we did it in public was our wedding on June 1st 2023. We were glowing surrounded by friends and family and we nailed that lift. We’ve done it in weddings where I was the DJ and we weren’t invitees. We’ve done it in dive bars and parks and definitely in the water once, just to recreate that training scene. This is one of those songs that play and you just feel it in your bones. Sometimes it starts and you might not feel it right away but when that beat drops, you can’t help but sway your hips. Bold move putting the closer first on the roster, but when pop this record on, it starts the party and then there’s no going back. It’s dancing time. This song is an encapsulation of the perfect 80’s film theme song. Pop power vocal ballady dance songs with a saxophone. If you want to get everyone at a wedding on the dance floor, you need a track that’ll connect to all generations, one that’ll feel familiar to the entire room, then this is the song for you.
Be My Baby (1963) - The Ronettes
The second song plays as soon as the studio title cards play and the movie begins. It was released in August of the same year the film is set. Probably the same month and week. The 60’s pop girl group sound with that drum beat is all about longing. All about the promise of love, which is what the movie, and more importantly, weddings are all about. The people getting married are making that promise, and the people gathered to witness the union must believe in the promise of love, or risk being the cynical person at the wedding, and nobody likes a yum yucker. In the film the song is used for setting and intention, but at weddings it’s used for pining and sweet nostalgia to a time of innocent crushing. The time you wrote that person’s name a hundred times in your notebook, and pretended to dance with them in front of the mirror. The time you wished on a star for a kiss from the person who filled you with butterflies at homeroom. Please stay on the phone till we fall asleep. Please hold my hand and walk with me, Please be my baby.
She's Like the Wind (1987) - Patrick Swayze
Praise the Swayz! Patrick Swayze was not only a great actor and dancer, but your boy had a little hit with She’s Like the Wind. At this point in the movie, Johnny has to move on and say goodbye to Baby. Then Swayze’s voice plays over his character and he’s so sad that he met this wonderful person and for all of the reasons, he just can’t. Johnny got fired and Baby’s dad hates him and he has to go. He was lucky to feel her caress, but you can’t hold the wind. It comes and gives you love and leaves you right where it finds you. Poor Patrick. Poor Johnny. This is a sad romantic song, but if you don’t pay too much attention to it, it just plays like a romantic ballad. I have never heard another Swayze song, and I’m totally okay with that. I don’t know how I would’ve felt with a complete Swayze album, but it was nice to have him here.
Hungry Eyes (1987) - Eric Carmen
Hungry Eyes has always felt like a deeply sensual song. Maybe it’s because it plays at a moment during dance training when Baby’s getting the hang of it and she is led by Johnny in front, while Penny guides her from behind. I think this scene is more sensual than sexual because Johnny and Penny are focused on teaching and Baby is focused on learning but the tension can be cut with a butter knife. The song continues into a full montage and the tension is growing by the second. That’s the power of a training montage. You need a great song with bits from scenes clipped together and you can convey the passing of time and gaining of skills in an elegant way. “With these hungry eyes, One look at you and I can't disguise, I've got hungry eyes, I feel the magic between you and I”.
Stay (1960) - Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs
Stay takes us back to the 60’s with a doo-wop standard that’s complete with a back-up very high voice adding cool punctuation vocals. This is the shortest song on the album at one minute thirty-three seconds and I always want it to go on longer. I’m very glad they used the original version of the song, and didn’t go with The Hollies or the Four Seasons, the latter of which was released the same year the film takes place. This song plays at the staff only party where Baby goes to give Penny the cash for the abortion, and they hatch the plan for Baby to learn the dance and cover for Penny while she recovers from the back alley procedure. This is when Baby makes a firm stance in her intention to join their circle and help someone in need.
Yes (1987) - Merry Clayton
Merry Clayton is known mostly for Gospel, but this song is giving me Pointer Sisters (see March 10th post). This is a get up and dance song. In the film it is played subversively, when Lisa, Baby’s posh sister, is headed to Robbie’s room, ready to surprise him and lose her virginity with him, but instead finds him in bed with Vivian who is married and cheating on her husband. The song stops abruptly when Lisa’s plans are foiled and she finally sees Robbie for the asshole Baby warned her about. A little sad this was the way the song was used, but it also felt out of time in the film. I don’t mind though cause it’s a banger, and a little contemporary music in a period piece can work really well.
Side Two
You Don't Own Me (1987) - The Blow Monkeys
This cover track isn’t prominently in the film as it plays in the background when Johnny and Robbie have their little fight. I was surprised to see they used this 80’s version. I love this song on the album, but if I were to listen to it on its own, I would probably pick the original by Lesley Gore or the Dusty Springfield cover. Still it’s a great tune.
Hey! Baby (1961) - Bruce Channel
This is a sweet Rock N Roll harmonica led song that gives the same feeling Be My Baby gives. The days of innocent yearning. Makes me want to ask Casey out to a sock hop at a local high school gymnasium. The song plays during more training montage where Johnny teaches Baby Mambo steps on a log, so she has to learn balance and how to keep her feet in sync with the steps using a limited amount of space. The song ends when they begin the lift training montage. Although the log dancing looked very dangerous and it was up high with nothing underneath it to break their fall, it’s actually a great way to learn Mambo steps. If you plan to do this at home I do recommend a net or some gym matts.
Overload (1987) - Alfie Zappacosta
80’s cheesy furry time. This song always tickles me. It’s like a Huey Lewis and the News cover sound. Classic Rock done in an 80’s style. I wouldn’t go listening to this outside of the album, but I love the chorus which always feel like I’m having a fun time and I need to do some funny dancing. It’s really a fine song that happens to fill me with silliness. When Johnny is locked out of his car and he’s trying to get away from a rainy day with Baby, so he takes a lawn fixture out of the ground and smashes his back window in, this song is playing in the background. I know it’s a movie thing, but the idea of someone smashing their window to get in their car leads me to believe they’ve never learned how to use a slim jim. But it looks good on the screen so they can have it.
Love Is Strange (1956) - Mickey & Sylvia
Well I spoke about this one earlier. It gave me feelings I wasn’t ready for when I was a kid. Johnny and Baby crawling to each other made me so red in the face. If my Mom would’ve walked in on me staring at this scene, mouth agape, I would’ve died of embarrassment. I wasn’t supposed to be watching this, which made me want to watch it even more. I rewound this one a few times and once even tried acting it out with someone my age, but that ended as awkwardly as the scene did.
Where Are You Tonight (1987) - Tom Johnston
80’s Yacht Rock is the best. I need a new pair of boat shoes. This song plays for a few short seconds when Baby follows Johnny to the staff only party with Billie’s watermelon as an excuse. This leads right to Baby’s seduction. Not by Johnny but by his whole world. The door opened and it can never be closed.
In the Still of the Night (1956) - The Five Satins
This classic Doo-Wop plays when Johnny and Baby are in bed, right after Lisa caught Robbie with Vivian and continues to the next morning when Vivian sees Baby leave Johnnys room. This is the moment in the movie where things begin to fall apart for our love birds. It’s a song of longing for a moment the singers are in and know will end. It’s not blatantly sad, but it does convey the sadness of knowing that perfect moments can’t last forever. Maybe that’s me reading myself into it, but I know the moment of holding someone, trying to stave off the morning, wishing you can freeze in time and lay together evermore.
To Sarah and Devon, thank you both for having us share in your love, and please find that still in the night and hold onto it forever.
I sincerely hope you enjoyed Dirty Dancing with me, and hope we can dance again next Sunday. Thanks for reading and please have a great week.
P.S. It’s really late and I didn’t proofread this yet. I will update with a slightly revised version tomorrow, but I didn’t want to disappoint anyone who reads this Sunday Mornings. It was a really fun wedding and I need to catch an early train tomorrow. I promise I’ll make it up to you.