The song was inspired by a harrowing incident
Some songs are just synonymous with popular culture and many people’s celebratory playlists feature classics such as ‘Sweet Caroline’, ‘Come on Eileen’ and the one and only ‘Dancing in The Moonlight’.
However, people are just discovering the extremely dark story behind ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’, the song made famous by band Toploader, despite not being their own song.
First it’s important to paint a bit of background.
The song ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ was written by American Sherman Kelly in 1970 and recorded by Kelly’s band Boffalongo in the same year.
Two years later Kelly left the band, but his brother Wells Kelly formed King Harvest and introduced the song to the group.
The song did find success during its second incarnation, reaching number 5 in Canada and 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Eventually the tune would be once again rerecorded, this time by British band Toploader who sent the song into the stratosphere.
However, the roots of the song ultimately reside in 1969 in the picturesque paradise of the American Virgin Islands.
Sherman Kelly and some friends were running a nightclub in St. Thomas, one of the islands in the archipelago and one day decided to lease a large yacht and enjoy a day trip to St. Croix, another island not far away.
However, unbeknownst to Kelly and his girlfriend, they both suffered badly from seasickness and they ended up quite unwell during the sail between the islands.
The group disembarked the ship after arriving in St. Croix and swiftly made their way to find dinner, however Kelly and his girlfriend were, understandably, not so keen on eating after their torrid journey.
The group decided to spend the night on the boat, however, put off by the chance of further seasickness, the couple decide to stay on terra firma and went to find a hotel to stay in.
Unfortunately, Kelly had left his wallet on the boat after becoming disorientated from the seasickness, leaving them unable to pay for somewhere to stay.
They explained their situation to an innkeeper, promising to pay their bill in the morning after collecting his wallet from the boat.
In an interview, Kelly told Vinyl Dialogues how the distasteful conversation went.
Kelly said: “He [the innkeeper] said, ‘Sure, you can stay here if your girlfriend will sleep with me’,
After being turned down by a second innkeeper his girlfriend had the idea of sleeping on the beach, which the pair decided to do.
“And that’s all I remember very clearly,” Kelly said.
Sadly for the couple this proved to be a big mistake as a violent gang local to St. Croix were roaming the streets.
They stumbled across the couple sleeping on the beach as five gang members attacked Kelly with baseball bats while the gang leader sexually assaulted his girlfriend.
Fortunately Kelly was able to regain consciousness and put up a fight during the assault, causing enough of a rumble to deter the attacking gang.
Kelly and his girlfriend then dragged themselves along the shoreline to find the only hospital on the island.
In the hospital Kelly remembers hearing doctors talking about some patients.
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He said: “I woke up to the sound of my hospital roommate screaming in pain. Finally, the screaming stopped, and I heard two doctors talking about him. ‘That’s it, he’s gone,’ said one doctor about the other patient.
“‘What about him, you think he’s gonna make it?’ And the other doctor said, ‘No, I doubt it.’ I realised they were talking about me.”
Despite pulling through the ordeal, Kelly was scarred by the attack, causing him to deprioritise music, although he continued writing during his recovery.
He decided to write about the desire for a better world, an almost fantasy of what he wished the world could be like, giving birth to the lyrics for ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’.
“I envisioned an alternate reality, the dream of a peaceful and joyous celebration of life. It was just me imagining a better world than the one I had just experienced in St. Croix,” said Kelly.
As it would transpire, the gang that attacked Kelly and his girlfriend would go on to become the notorious Fountain Valley Gang, who in 1972 murdered eight tourists and wounded eight more.
Kelly remembers recording the vocals for the song being drugged up by producers on cocaine till his vocals sounded “weird” on the track.
He said: “I found myself in the vocal booth, where there were a lot of people distracting me. And the producers would give me more cocaine to keep me doing takes until my voice was so distorted and so weird.”
The song featured on Boffalongo’s album ‘Beyond Your Head’ with his brother Wells Kelly on drums.
However, the band would not last as they broke up, leading to Wells Kelly joining King Harvest who rerecorded the song and later toured with Sherman Kelly, however he only stayed a month with the band.
Kelly went on to have a mixed life, tragically losing his brother at just 35-years-old causing so much sorrow he decided to give up music.
He went on to study at Syracuse University in New York.
‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ remained a solid track until it was reincarnated for a third time by British band Toploader in 1999, explaining its popularity in the United Kingdom.
The song was a huge hit and later became notorious for its use in dark British comedy ‘Four Lions’.
Kelly’s song is a testament to the human mind and those who have suffered the most horrific of tragedies only to create light and hope where darkness had once resided.
‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ is a three minute encapsulation of such beauty and yearning for a better, kinder world.
