"Last Dance" is a song by American singer

Donna Summer LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948May 17, 2012), known professionally as Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s and became known as the " Queen of Disco", while her musi ...

from the

soundtrack album A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' ...

to the 1978 film '' Thank God It's Friday''. It was written by

Paul Jabara Paul Jabara, also known as Paul Frederick Jabara, (January 31, 1948 – September 29, 1992) was an American actor, singer, and songwriter of Lebanese ancestry, born in Brooklyn, New York. He wrote Donna Summer's Oscar-winning " Last Dance" from ...

, co-produced by Summer's regular collaborator

Giorgio Moroder Giovanni Giorgio Moroder (, ; born 26 April 1940) is an Italian composer, songwriter, and record producer. Dubbed the " Father of Disco", Moroder is credited with pioneering euro disco and electronic dance music. His work with synthesizers had ...

and Bob Esty, and mixed by

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pr ...

-winning producer Stephen Short, whose backing vocals are featured in the song. "Last Dance" became a critical and commercial success, winning the

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

and

Golden Globe The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of ...

Award for Best Original Song, the

Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance The Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance (previously called Best Rhythm and Blues Solo Vocal Performance, Female) was an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards ...

, and peaked at number three on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart, all in 1978.

Background and composition

Summer has a role in the film '' Thank God It's Friday'' as an aspiring singer who brings an instrumental track of "Last Dance" to a

disco Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric p ...

in hopes the disc jockey will play the track and allow her to sing the song for her fellow patrons; after refusing through most of the film the disc jockey eventually obliges Summer's character and her performance causes a sensation. According to the song's arranger Bob Esty, Paul Jabara had locked Summer in a

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

hotel bathroom and forced her to listen to a cassette of him singing a rough version of "Last Dance". Summer liked the song and Jabara asked Esty to work with him on an arrangement for Summer to make her recording. Esty recalls: "Last Dance" was also one of the first disco songs to feature slow tempo parts: it starts off as a ballad; the full-length version on the film soundtrack also has a slow part in the middle. This part was edited out for the 7". The versions found on most greatest hits packages is either the original 7" edit (3:21) or the slightly longer and remixed version from the 1979 compilation '' On The Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2'' (4:56). "Last Dance" started a trend for Summer as some of her following hits also had a ballad-like intro before speeding up the tempo. On David Foster's "The Hitman Returns" DVD, David Foster introduces the song by relating a story to Donna Summer. When he played on the session in 1978, Foster thought the producer's suggestion to start the song as a ballad and change into a faster tempo was "the stupidest idea I've ever heard in my life, but we did it."

Awards and recognition

"Last Dance" won songwriter

for Best Rhythm & Blues Song, an

, and a Golden Globe for Best Original Song that same year. The song won Donna Summer at the

American Music Awards The American Music Awards (AMAs) is an annual American music awards show, generally held in the fall, created by Dick Clark in 1973 for ABC when the network's contract to air the Grammy Awards expired, and currently produced by Dick Clark Pro ...

prizes for Favorite Disco Single and Favorite Female Disco Artist. She would also win the

for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female. With a #3 peak on the Hot 100 in '' Billboard'' magazine the week of August 12, 1978, "Last Dance" became Summer's third US Top Ten hit after " Love to Love You Baby" and "

I Feel Love "I Feel Love" is a song by American singer and songwriter Donna Summer. Produced and co-written by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, it was recorded for Summer's fifth studio album, ''I Remember Yesterday'' (1977). The album concept was to have ...

" and almost matched the #2 hit "Love to Love You Baby" as Summer's best-charting single (at that time). "Last Dance" also afforded Summer a #5 hit on the R&B charts, and was #1 on ''Billboards Hot Disco Action Chart for six weeks eventually being ranked as the #1 Disco hit for the year 1978. Certified gold by the RIAA on July 19, 1978, for sales of a million units in the US,"Last Dance" marked a downturn in Summer's chart fortunes in the UK where she'd previously had more chart impact than in the US with "Last Dance"'s UK chart peak being at #51; Summer would return to the UK Top Ten - at #5 - with her follow-up single "

MacArthur Park MacArthur Park (originally Westlake Park) is a park dating back to the late 19th century in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. In the early 1940s, it was renamed after General Douglas MacArthur, and later designated City of Los Angeles H ...

" a single which afforded Summer her first US #1. The song was ranked number 10 out of the top 76 songs of the 1970s by

internet radio Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted ...

station WDDF Radio in their 2016 countdown.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Appearances in other media

* The song is frequently used by many

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

s as their last song before changing formats, being used by many "Jammin' Oldies" stations in the US before the downfall of the format early in the decade of the 2000s. It was also used as the last song on the SiriusXM channel The Strobe in October 2010. On June 6, 2016 at 12 p.m.,

classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 1980 ...

station

KOSF KOSF (103.7 FM) is a commercial classic hits radio station that is licensed to San Francisco, California. Owned by iHeartMedia, the station serves the San Francisco Bay Area. The KOSF studios are located in San Francisco's SoMa district, while t ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

played "Last Dance" before flipping from "Big 103.7" to 1980s hits as "iHeart 80s at 103.7".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Dance (Song) 1978 singles Donna Summer songs CeCe Peniston songs Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songs Best Original Song Golden Globe winning songs Songs written by Paul Jabara Casablanca Records singles Song recordings produced by Giorgio Moroder 1978 songs Songs about dancing Disco songs