This article is about the 1976 song. For the Terence Rattigan

Terence Rattigan

Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...

 play see After the Dance

After the Dance (play)

After the Dance is a play by Terence Rattigan which premièred at the St James's Theatre, London, on 21 June 1939. It was not one of Rattigan's more successful plays, closing after only sixty performances, a failure that led to its exclusion from his first volume of Collected Plays...

"After the Dance" is a slow jam

Slow jam

A slow jam an umbrella term for music with R&B and Soul influences. Slow jams are commonly R&B ballads or down tempo songs. The term is most commonly reserved for soft-sounding songs with heavily emotional or romantic lyrical content. This definition has led to intense debate over whether...

 recorded by singer Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....

 and released as the second single off Gaye's hit album, I Want You. Though it received modest success, the song served as one of Marvin's best ballads and the song served as part of the template for quiet storm

Quiet storm

Quiet storm is a late-night radio format, featuring soulful slow jams, pioneered in the mid-1970s by then-station-intern Melvin Lindsey at WHUR-FM, in Washington, D.C. Smokey Robinson's like-titled hit single, released in 1975 as the title track to his third solo album, lent its name to the format...

 and urban contemporary

Urban contemporary

Urban contemporary is a music radio format. The term was coined by the late New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a playlist made up entirely of hip hop/rap, contemporary R&B, pop, electronica such as dubstep and drum and bass and Caribbean music...

 ballads that came afterwards.

Overview

Written by Marvin Gaye and his co-producer Leon Ware

Leon Ware

Leon Ware is a soul music singer, songwriter and producer. Best known for crafting the hit album, I Want You, originally recorded for Ware, until friend and Motown icon Marvin Gaye was assigned to the album in 1976...

, the song narrates a moment where the author noticed a woman on Soul Train

Soul Train

Soul Train is an American musical variety show that aired in syndication from October 1971 to March 2006. In its 35-year history, the show primarily featured performances by R&B, soul, and hip hop artists, although funk, jazz, disco, and gospel artists have also appeared.As a nod to Soul Trains...

 and convinces the girl to "get together" after the two shared a dance. Throughout the entire I Want You album, which was dedicated to Marvin's live-in lover Janis Hunter, the narrator (Gaye) brings up the dance concept in songs such as "Since I Had You

Since I Had You

"Since I Had You" is a quiet storm-styled soul song recorded by singer Marvin Gaye for the I Want You album. The song was co-written by Gaye and producer Leon Ware and is a song that like "All the Way Round" talked of a reunion between the singer and a reputed lover, this time at a dance floor and...

". The song also served in a funky instrumental, which included a synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

 solo performed by Marvin, who also played piano on the song and the entire album itself.

The single came out on the strength of its success as a double-A side on the Billboard Club Songs chart, where it had peaked at number-ten alongside the album's hit title track. The song was Marvin's lowest-peaked pop single for the first time in fourteen years since the b-side of his "Can I Get a Witness

Can I Get a Witness

"Can I Get a Witness" is a 1963 hit song by Marvin Gaye on the Tamla label. Written and produced by Motown songwriting and producing team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song was built among gospel-styled music and heralded Gaye's beginnings in the church with a rhythm and blues/rock and roll setting...

" titled "I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby", peaking at number seventy-four, ironically three places higher than "I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby", while it was a bigger success on the R&B chart peaking at number-fourteen.

Samples and interpolations

It has since been covered by a legion of jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 vocalists and groups including Fourplay

Fourplay

Fourplay is a contemporary jazz quartet in the United States. The original members of the group were Bob James , Lee Ritenour , Nathan East , and Harvey Mason . In 1997, Lee Ritenour left the group and Fourplay chose Larry Carlton as his replacement...

, who covered the song with longtime Gaye admirer, R&B

Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 singer El DeBarge

El DeBarge

Eldra Patrick "El" DeBarge is an American R&B/pop falsetto singer and was the focal point and lead singer of the family group DeBarge throughout the early to mid-1980s....

, in 1991. Their version was released as a single that year and re-introduced newer listeners to Gaye's original.

During her "Girlie Show" concert in 1993, Madonna

Madonna (entertainer)

Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...

 resung the opening lyric of the song, "Dance with me/c'mon, dance with me, baby", while performing "Everybody". The song was also sampled by De La Soul on the track "With Me" from their Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump

Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump

Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump is De La Soul's fifth full-length studio album, released on August 8, 2000.- Overview :The album was the first in a planned three-disc installment, which was originally intended to be a three-disc album...

 album and by Nas

Nas

Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, who performs under the name Nas , formerly Nasty Nas, is an American rapper and actor. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in hip hop and one of the most skilled and influential rappers of all-time...

 on the track "Play On Playa" from his 2006 album Hip Hop is Dead

Hip Hop Is Dead

Hip Hop Is Dead is the eighth studio album by American rapper Nas, released December 15, 2006 on Def Jam Recordings. His first album for the label, it was co-financed by Nas's previous label, Columbia Records, which once distributed for Def Jam...

.