Dance Around in Your Bones by Joan Lennon

I live in Scotland, so I am rarely troubled by being too hot.  But the summers were scorchers where I grew up and I now have a son living in Indonesia - and when I visit oh how I wish I could follow the delectable Lee Morse's advice!  Which advice is that, I hear you ask?  Listen up -

I've combined the various versions of the lyrics that the internet has to offer for you.

Dancing may do this and that

And help you take off lots of fat

But I'm no friend of dancing when it's hot

So if you are a dancing fool

Who loves to dance, but can't keep cool

Bear in mind the ideas that I've got

When it gets too hot for comfort

And you can't get ice cream cones

T'ain't no sin to take off your skin

And dance around in your bones

When the lazy syncopation

Of the music softly moans

T'ain't no sin to take off your skin

And dance around in your bones

The polar bears aren't green up in Greenland

They've got the right idea

They think it's great to refrigerate

While we all cremate down here

Just be like those bamboo babies

In the South Sea tropic zones

T'ain't no sin to take off your skin

And dance around in your bones

When you're calling up your sweetie

In those hothouse telephones

T'ain't no sin to take off your skin

And dance around in your bones

When you're on a crowded dance floor

Near those red hot saxophones

Ah, t'ain't no sin to take off your skin

And dance around in your bones

Take a look at the girls when they're dancing

Notice the way they're dressed

They wear silken clothes without any hose

And nobody knows the rest

No more singing in the bathtub

With those television phones

T'ain't no sin to take off your skin

And dance around in your bones

Now, we are gathered by the river

Listen to your Deacon Jones

T'ain't no sin to take off your skin

And dance around in your bones

You must all go in that water

Let me hear your sinful groans

T'ain't no sin to take off your skin

And dance around in your bones

Do what I say right away, wicked sinners

For this is your judgement day

Come andele in the river with me

Wash your sins away

Throw away your gin and razors

Throw away your gambling bones

For t'ain't no sin to take off your skin

And dance around in your bones


There are definitely bits I had to look up.  Andele, for example, is, according to Wiktionary, American slang for hurry up; come on; get a move on!  Gin and razors could refer to a cocktail of gin and cayenne pepper, which seems to me a ghastly thing to do to gin, so definitely worth throwing away.  But who is Deacon Jones?  Other than a preacher who conveniently rhymes with bones?  And why were telephone boxes so hot?  Let me know if you've got any ideas.  And what about that reference to television phones way back in 1929?  Wow!

One last tidbit - in the comments of the instrumental version of 'Taint No Sin by Fred "Sugar" Hall and His Sugar Babies here, I learned that this was Ray Bradbury's favourite song as a boy.  ("Zen in the Art of Writing")  

Lee Morse, American jazz and blues singer and songwriter (1897 - 1954)

Joan Lennon's website.
Joan Lennon's blog.
Walking Mountain.