Anniversary dance playlist: Final

Partner page to 25th wedding anniversary party: An inside look.

Also available for listening on GooglePlayMusic: Anniversary-final

And most of the songs are also gathered in this YouTube playlist: Anniversary dance

The beginning

This is when people are just arriving and socializing and not really dancing yet. I originally had less good songs here, but then Jean hoped that maybe some dancing would start earlier on (so we didn’t have to launch it), so I put better ones earlier. Didn’t entirely work, but at least the better songs were played…

  1. Get the Party Started P!nk—A natural opener
  2. Oh…Canada Classified—F-bomb on song 2!
  3. Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…) Lou Bega & Pérez Prado
  4. Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps Mari Wilson—Bought special for this event; I was bit a low on tango’s, otherwise
  5. Come Away With Me Norah Jones—And I was even lower on slow waltzes (had quite a few Viennese waltz), so I bought this, too. Gorgeous song, really.
  6. Hot Patootie (Bless My Soul) What Ever Happened to Saturday Night Adam Lambert—He and Queen made the most frequent appearances on this playlist (4 each)
  7. Moves Like Jagger Maroon 5 (fearing Christina Aguilara)
  8. Hips Don’t Lie (feat. Wyclef Jean) Shakira & Wyclef Jean
  9. (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life Bill Medley—Sadly, no one tried the full Dirty Dancing rhumba
  10. What You Feel The Cast Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer—It’s a quickstep!
  11. La Isla Bonita Madonna—Gorgeous samba
  12. Word Crimes Weird Al Yankovic—And not, you’ll note, that Robin Thicke song

And you can tell everybody, this is your song

We did end up opening the evening dancing to these three, as described in Anniversary party: An insider’s view.

  1. Crazy Little Thing Called Love Queen—It’s a love song, and it’s Queen, and we love to jive
  2. Are You with Me (Radio Edit) Lost Frequencies
  3. Fever Michael Bublé—Very sexy slow fox

Leading up to intermission

The dance floor became increasingly crowded with these.

Yep, it’s as fun to dance to as it looks here
  1. Ziguedon Swing—I think Sarah-Simone asked her uncle Jean to dance with her to this one (she did get him out there for something, anyway)
  2. Uptown Funk Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars
  3. Black Velvet Alannah Myles—An East Coast swing, a style that Jean and I haven’t mastered, but some of our friends have
  4. Vote for Mr. Rhythm Nikki Yanofsky—We did dance to this quickstep, by request
  5. The Rainbow Connection Sarah McLachlan— A very popular waltz choice for the ballroom crowd. And another song I had to buy, but it’s quite lovely
  6. Tando De Los Exilados Vanessa-Mae—Coolest tango song ever, though not a big dance floor draw
  7. Countdown Beyoncé—I couldn’t resist a little hip hop
  8. Twist And Shout The Beatles
  9. Time Warp Little Nell, Patricia Quinn & Richard O’Brien
  10. Thriller / Heads Will Roll (Glee Cast Version) Glee Cast—“I’m not getting the romantic significance of a lot of these things”, a friend commented at this point.
  11. Livin’ La Vida Loca Ricky Martin—Whee!
  12. Ghost Body (Mixed Mashup) Adam Lambert & Tove Lo—Some annoyance among the dance crowd that the “Ghost Town” parts slowed the cha cha tempo somewhat
  13. Dance Me To The End Of Love Madeleine Peyroux— I lured Jean out with this slowfox so he’d be ready for…
  14. The Millonaire Waltz (edit) Queen—I had to edit the song down (using Audacity) as the waltz tempo completely fell away in some segments. We’d danced the three previous numbers, and Jean was really tired by this point. But he soldiered through! It is a hoot to dance to (if you know a bit of waltz).
  15. Champs Elysées ZAZ —Don’t know much about this French singer, but she does lovely modern takes on ballroom tempos
  16. Je t’aime (avec Karim Ouellet) Marième
  17. Quando, Quando, Quando Michael Bublé

Everybody dance, now

There was a break for food and video watching, then the party resumed with these.

A rather memorable video—we talked about it that night
  1. My Paperback Sharona The Beatles/The Knack—I love a good mashup
  2. Pop That Lock Adam Lambert
  3. La Goutte LGS—Sarah-Simone and I did a dance-off to this one. Thank goodness she gave up first; I might have had a heart attack otherwise, trying to keep up with a 10-year-old
  4. Kiss Prince & The Revolution—Sherry was my dance partner for this, by one of our mutual favourites
  5. Beyond The Sea Robbie Williams—And Jean kind of had to dance this one with me! (As he had requested it be added.)
  6. If I Were A Man Andrea Menard—From the Queer as Folk soundtrack, by the way
  7. I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor— I had sort of envisioned a whole group of women up dancing to the next set: And that’s exactly what happened. A bunch of Jean’s canoe friends were part of that.
  8. Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves Eurythmics
  9. Roar Katy Perry
  10. Lucky Bif Naked—A waltz, but I should have left “Come Away With Me” in this spot
  11. Smooth Carlos Santana & Rob Thomas
  12. Faith George Michael—Another Sherry fave!
  13. Can’t Get You out of My Head Kylie Minogue—Shannon joined in here too, as we discussed Kylie’s long-enduring career
  14. Take This Waltz (Live) – Short Leonard Cohen—Another I edited down, as the original is 8 minutes and nobody wants to Viennese waltz for that long. Much easier than “Millionaire Waltz”, as it was just a matter of ending it earlier. Was quite a popular one to dance to, actually.
  15. Modern Love David Bowie—I originally had Prince, George Michael, and David Bowie, but that finally seemed a bit morbid
  16. Lost Together Blue Rodeo
  17. Cheek To Cheek Ella Fitzgerald
  18. Hot Hot Hot Buster Poindexter and His Banshees Of Blue—Guess it’s not a pure samba beat, but that’s what Jean and I like to do to this one
  19. The Havana Slide Vanessa-Mae
  20. Shake It Off Taylor Swift

The late-night crowd

By 11:15, the crowd was thinning, of course, so the number of ballroom-y numbers diminished.


Rockin’ with… will.i.and “Britney bitch”
  1. Baba O’Riley (Kiely Rich Remix) The Who—I wanted The Who in here somehow, but they ain’t a dance band. Remix to the rescue.
  2. Let’s Face The Music And Dance Diana Krall
  3. Grease Megamix Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta—Whee!
  4. I Love Rock ‘N Roll Joan Jett & The Blackhearts—“All the good ones are at the end!” commented (friend) Cathy, at this point.
  5. Scream & Shout (feat. Britney Spears) will.i.am—This song is so sticky, but I kind of love it. “Whatever happened to will.i.am?” Shannon wondered that night.
  6. Helpless Ashanti Feat. Ja Rule—From the Broadway musical Hamilton, but this is the mixtape version
  7. Save the Last Dance for Me Ben E. King— I had to laugh when this played at about midnight, which was the exact time I’d targetted it for!
  8. I Didn’t Just Come Here to Dance Carly Rae Jepsen—Featured in our “How we met” video.
  9. Come Dancing The Kinks
  10. Get Lucky Daft Punk
  11. Por Una Cabeza Gardel-Lapera —From a Latin music CD I won at a dance once
  12. Jumpin’ Jive Joe Jackson—A remake of a classic jive song
  13. Bad Romance Lady GaGa—A proper cha cha, this
  14. Raise Your Glass P!nk
  15. Subversives The Lowest Of The Low—Another fave band that is not a dance bad, but you can still slow dance to it.

Cut off

As a “just in case”, the playlist was deliberately longer than required, so these songs were not heard that evening.

  1. Trespassing Dusty Mishmash Queen + Adam Lambert—Sherry commented she thought there would be more Queen, but their dance numbers are limited, also. Too bad this remix of “Another One Bites the Dust” and “Trespassing” didn’t quite make it, though. Both Jean and I really like it.
  2. Swinging on a Star Harry Connick Jr.—Bumped for “Beyond the Sea”
  3. The Wrong Band Tori Amos—Viennese waltz by Tori
  4. The Brits are playing at my house FAROFF—A Beatles / Kinks mashup to kind of a jive beat
  5. I Keep It To Myself Wilko Johnson & Roger Daltrey—And a proper jive number
  6. I Won’t Dance Frank Sinatra—Originally I had this after the “girl power” songs, which struck me as kind of funny, but…
  7. Happy (Gru’s Theme from Despicable Me 2) Pharrell Williams
  8. La Cumparsita Mattos Rodriguez—Another from that Latin dance CD
  9. Can’t Help Falling in Love Elvis Presley
  10. Hella Good No Doubt
  11. One Year Of Love Queen—The song we did dance to at our wedding, but it’s a hella slow waltz
  12. Wannabe Spice Girls
  13. Cha-Ching Hedley—Originally in the early set (“Now everybody dance! And everybody sing”), but bumped
  14. Crazy For You Madonna—Similarly. Like this a lot, but it’s somewhat low energy.
  15. All Of Me Ella Fitzgerald