The Dance

My wife and I went to the Garth Brooks concert (our first) at Notre Dame Stadium this past Saturday night.  He ended his first set (nineteen songs) with his 1990 chart-topping single "The Dance".  It's a great song, and Brooks credits his phenomenal success as a musical artist to the back-to-back success of this hit single and another chart-topping single "Friends in Low Places".  It's one of his favorite songs - in a 1994 interview Brooks said, "...unless I am totally surprised, The Dance will be the greatest success as a song we will ever do. I'll go to my grave with The Dance. It'll probably always be my favorite song."

The song was written by Tony Arata, who claims that the 1986 Peggy Sue Got Married inspired the lyrics (a movie about a woman who goes back in time to her senior year in high school and has the chance to make different decisions that will alter her life).  Just take a look at the first two verses and refrain:

Looking back

On the memory of

The dance we shared

'Neath the stars above

For a moment

All the world was right

But how could I have known

That you'd ever say goodbye

And now I'm glad I didn't know

The way it all would end

The way it all would go

Our lives are better left to chance

I could have missed the pain

But I'd have had to miss the dance

So, on the one hand, "The Dance" is a love song about about the end of a relationship.  The singer/narrator is heartbroken, but he is still glad that he had been in love.  Alfred Lord Tennyson (in his poem, In memoriam A.H.H.) may have said it best, "tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."  

On the other hand, if you watch the official music video (unfortunately, I couldn't find the link, but the video shows clips from archival footage from Martin Luther King, Jr, John F. Kennedy, and the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger), the song is also about taking chances.  Brooks explains, "To a lot of people, I guess 'The Dance' is a love gone bad song.  Which, you know, that it is.  But to me it's always been a song about life.  Or maybe the loss of those people that have given the ultimate sacrifice for a dream that they believed in, like the John F. Kennedy's or the Martin Luther King's.  And if they could come back, I think they would say to us what the lyrics of 'The Dance' say."  Just check out the final verse:

It's my life, it's better left to chance

I could have missed the pain

But I'd have had to miss the dance.

We rarely, if ever, get second chances.  Live life to the fullest, and don't be afraid of taking a risk.  Regardless of the outcome, it will all be worth it.  Someone once said, "Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise."

The writer Mark Twain once said, ""Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."  Don't miss the dance.