Michael Bublé: Save The Last Dance For Me

Quiz by Sharon Michiko Yoneda

artist:  Michael Bublé

songwriter:  Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman

date released:  2005 by Michael Bublé

This tune has been covered many times over by The Drifters, Ben E. King and others, but Michael Bublé adds his big band Latin dance sound to the classic.  Nobody beats his music video.   In the song, the narrator tells his lover she is free to mingle and socialize throughout the evening, but to make sure to save him the dance at the end of the night.

What was interesting for me to discover that the songwriter, Doc Pomus, was disabled and in a wheelchair.  Pomus had polio and at times used crutches to get around.  During an interview on Elvis Costello's show Spectacle, Lou Reed, who worked with Pomus, said the song was written on the day of Pomus' wedding while the wheelchair-using groom was watching his bride dancing with their guests.  His wife, Willi Burke, however, was a Broadway actress and dancer. The song gives his perspective of telling his wife to have fun dancing, but reminds her who will be taking her home and "in whose arms you're gonna be."  I can feel his longing in Bublé's rendition of this classic, especially now that I know the background behind the creation of the tune.

The genesis of music and lyrics never ceases to amaze me.