The Safety Dance was released by Canadian band Men Without Hats back in 1982. According to Last.fm:
The writer/lead singer, Ivan Doroschuk, has explained that “The Safety Dance” is a protest against bouncers prohibiting dancers from pogoing to 1980s new wave music in clubs when disco was dying and new wave was up and coming. New wave dancing, especially pogoing, was different from disco dancing, because it was done individually instead of with partners and involved holding the torso rigid and thrashing about. To uninformed bystanders this could look dangerous, especially if pogoers accidentally bounced into one another (the more deliberately violent evolution of pogoing is slamdancing). The bouncers did not like pogoing so they would tell pogoers to stop or be kicked out of the club. Thus, the song is a protest and a call for freedom of expression.
The song’s video is well worth seeing, not least for the rather anachronistic medieval stylings, but I have to admit that I am rather taken by the more recent version recorded by and the marvellously named Danish band, The Asteroids Galaxy Tour.
Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill 