Early within the filming of Barbie, director Greta Gerwig and composer and producer Mark Ronson had settled on a monitor to attain the movie’s first huge dance scene. However no disco track is full with out its diva, so quickly Ronson despatched a direct message to pop’s reigning disco queen, Dua Lipa, and requested her to return on board for what would ultimately change into “Dance the Night time.”
Ronson and Lipa first labored collectively, together with Diplo, on 2018’s “Electrical energy,” a house-inspired monitor which helped set her down the trail to her 2020 album, Future Nostalgia. When Ronson reached out this time round, Lipa’s schedule was packed. She was in the midst of a world tour and she or he had already began engaged on the music for her third album, which is slated to return out subsequent 12 months. However for Barbie, she knew she wanted to make the time.
“I’ve been such a fan of Greta’s work. So my first response was, sure, please. I might like to do it! However I used to be on tour fairly relentlessly final 12 months,” she mentioned. “So my solely fear was, am I going to have the ability to make the time to go to the studio and work on this track? Fortunately we discovered time, and I flew to New York.”
One in all Gerwig’s important inspirations early within the course of was the Bee Gees and their contributions to the long-lasting 1977 soundtrack for Saturday Night time Fever, which put the disco sound firmly within the mainstream and spawned 4 of quantity ones on the Billboard Scorching 100. It was a touchstone that Lipa was very happy to take pleasure in, even when her upcoming work, together with the brand new single “Houdini,” is enjoying with a special set of inspirations.
“Once you suppose again to only that soundtrack alone, it’s such a mammoth of a report musically. After which mixed with the film, it made it culturally shifting in a means,” she mentioned. “I felt like I had departed from my disco influences, however once I received requested to do that, I used to be like, you already know what? I believe I can dig again in and write one other disco-leaning track; I used to be in my Future Nostalgia world anyhow. I used to be like, I can do that. And I used to be simply so excited to be part of it!”
An earlier model that Ronson and Lipa wrote collectively was a bit extra melancholy, following Barbie’s path within the movie, however ultimately they determined that it wasn’t the fitting temper for the occasion, which caps off what was purported to be an ideal day in Barbie Land. When a preliminary model of the scene was prepared, they reconvened within the studio for a couple of rewrites that introduced the verses into direct dialog with the onscreen exercise.
“Within the track, it was actually essential for me to seize the concept that I can mainly dance by way of something. Even when issues are going fallacious, I’ll by no means let it present on my face what’s taking place,” she mentioned. “It was additionally simply so enjoyable to get so concerned within the storyline and the attitude, and simply we dug a lot till we felt like we received the proper lyrics to suit that second totally.”
Ronson later shared a video clip from that day to his Instagram account; in it, you see Lipa centered on the duty, eyes mounted on the display screen. She is well-known for her talent in lyrically conjuring a nighttime world from scratch, however engaged on “Dance the Night time” allowed her to flex completely different muscle tissues. “As a result of writing for movie isn’t one thing that I’ve executed earlier than, that was once I realized the ability of presumably with the ability to write lyrics like a rating,” she defined. “I can mainly narrate a narrative, and narrate what’s taking place within the scene, to actually merge the 2 worlds collectively, the music and the film. [The song] will be its personal stand-alone factor, but additionally when collectively it’s 100% tailor-made for that very second within the movie.”
