mrshl | blog

Dancing in the Round

Easily one of my favorite Cardigans songs because of it’s gorgeous descending hook, "In the Round" (from Super Extra Gravity) includes some pretty basic relationship-type lyrics from Nina Persson. As is so often the case with Cardigans, it’s either about communicating with one another or getting it on. Or both:

I am young and I’m alive
I want to talk about things
I am young and I own my life
I need to talk about it, baby

I am one but I asked for two
I didn’t get anything
This puppet’s lonely without you
It’s tough to walk without strings

I do my dance in the round

You might have heard of this concept before: Dancing in the Round. Maybe from Michael Jackson?

Billie Jean

She says I am the one
Gonna dance on the floor
in the round.

I’m fairly certain these allusions to dancing in the round refer to the centuries old practice of celebrants surrounding a single dancer and watching them throw down some virtuoso moves while everyone claps and kicks their legs up high. For Jackson, the reference is probably explicitly related to breakdancing.

But Persson and Jackson invert the context for this tradition by focusing on the isolation inherent in round dancing. Dancing alone in the center of the circle brings with it a pressure to perform under intense scrutiny. This kind of alienation can be exhilarating for a while. But in "Billie Jean" Jackson seems to use performance as both an escape from and, a metaphor for, the norms of a society that would have him care for a woman and a child suspected to be his.

Persson, too is feeling the pressure of performance, and she wants someone to share it with. Or maybe she doesn’t:

I am young, coming at you live
People gonna talk about me
When I’m done, please hang me high
For everybody to see

Cause I do my dance in the round
So people clap your hands

But whether you spurn it or succumb, there is always centrifugal urge to break from the circle and find a partner, where one can find the comfort and trust that comes with an audience of one.