YMD Summer Jams 2010 #7

Robyn - "Dancehall Queen"

"Dancing On My Own" is still an official summer jam, but since this morning this has been dominating my brain so thoroughly that it must be declared one as well. It's the second song in a row in which Robyn is dancing by herself, but unlike the last one, in which she is specifically dancing on her own to highlight her loneliness and rejection, this one is more ambiguous and, I think, more interesting.

"I came to dance not to socialize" is a great line, an example of how the narrator of the song foregrounds her objectives (dancing superiority and the recognition thereof) and methods (solitude) but not her reasoning. Is being Dancehall Queen an end unto itself? Should we, especially in the context of an album that includes "Dancing on My Own", assume that there are other emotional factors in the narrator's choice of solitude? ("I'll go down low like she won't..." in the bridge suggests this might just be a completely different way of dealing with the "Dancing on My Own" situation) (A different way of dealing with it through dancing, of course).

It wouldn't be nearly as moving, though, without the chorus melody, which I have to admit has a pretty ridiculous effect on me. It legit almost made me tear up on the train no less than three times today, and I fear what it might to do me if I hear it out/drunk.