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Released in 1982

Ballroom Dancing

Written by Paul McCartney

Last updated on January 7, 2024

Album This song officially appears on the Tug Of War Official album.

Timeline This song was officially released in 1982

Timeline This song was written, or began to be written, in 1980, when Paul McCartney was 38 years old)

Master album

Related sessions

This song was recorded during the following studio sessions:

Related interviews

“Ballroom Dancing” is a song from 1982 album “Tug Of War“.

Like most people, I’ve got memories that go back to when I was a teenager, like when George Harrison and I used to go to the local dance and neither of us would ever dare to ask a girl to dance until the last waltz. It was then that we thought, ‘Oh God, we’ve wasted all our money when all we came here for was to touch a girl. We’ve got to do it. Okay, let’s waltz, come on.’ We were always too shy but we’d always try and grab someone for that last dance. But most times we’d get refused. We never really got into ballroom dancing but that was where you went if you wanted to dance. We’d go to The Locarno or The Grafton, all the big ballrooms. And with The Beatles, the ballroom circuit was a big circuit. We did a lot of ballrooms in our early career before we gravitated to the theatres. The song ‘Ballroom Dancing’ was just little images you have as a kid, flying carpets, playing Davy Crockett, going down the Nile in a china cup, all these childhood images mixed up with this ballroom. It’s a lot of little images involved in growing up.

Paul McCartney, from Badman, Keith. The Beatles: The Dream Is Over – Off The Record 2 (p. 303).

I wrote the song about my own childhood memories of sailing down the Nile in a china cup, or any other similar game we might play. “I’ll be Rommel and you can play Tom Mix, the cowboy”. It could be anything. I chose going down the Nile in a china cup because it sums it all up. China and Nile are fantasy words to kids. It could have been Alexandria, Cairo or Singapore – they were magic exotic places.

The first verse is very young childish games, the second verse is slightly growing up and on to the flying carpet stage and Davy Crockett hats and stuff, and it keeps coming back to “We used to fight like cats and dogs”, and that’s just the idea that childhood wasn’t all glorious wonderful summer days.

Basically it’s all my childhood memories distilled into one song, which develops into memories of being a teenager going to dance halls and ballrooms – only they’re called discos now.

Paul McCartney – From the “Give My Regards To Broad Street” book, Pavilion Books, 1984
Paul’s handwritten lyrics for Ballroom Dancing – From the “Tug Of War Archive Collection” @ 2015 MPL Communications Inc

“Ballroom Dancing” was re-recorded for the McCartney’s 1984 movie, “Give My Regards To Broad Street“.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwOxAtnQomM

Story of the “Ballroom Dancing” clip :

MUSIC – Ballroom Dancing (A tableau of THREE CHILDREN in a giant teacup sailing down the River Nile. On a painted backdrop are palms and pyramids while painted waves are pulled from side to side to represent the Nile.)

(Camera returns to the tableau again for Verse 2. This time the three kids are supposed to be the same three kids a little bit older. They are on a ‘carpet ride to a foreign land’. The carpet floats mid-air against a backdrop of painted sky and start. The camera pulls away from the stage to reveal that the ballroom floor has now filled up with FORMATION DANCER, all dressed identically like the first couple. Camera tracks through dancers, performing their formal steps to swing doors at the back which are suddenly thrown open).

(THREE TEENAGERS stride through the door, causing a stir in the room. They are clearly the children from the tea cup and carpet cameos grown up. The GIRL still wears her red hair in bunches, BOY 1 wears dark glasses and a suit and BOY 2 wears T-shirt, jeans and carries a bomber jacket. They attract the attention of some of the ROCK ‘N’ ROLLERS standing at the bar who leap over the balustrade to join them.

(The FORMATION DANCERS put on a show of icy disdain and try to continue their dancing unperturbed)

(The whole ballroom is bedlam now, teenagers and formation dancers lashing out at each other, until eventually the whole set above the band collapses in a confused heap of drapes and toppling pillars)

(The girl kicks one of the formation dancers off the stage who falls backwards into a group of lady formation dancers who all fall over into a heap, legs in the air)

From Club Sandwich N°34, 1984

Lyrics

Well I used to smile when I was a pup

Sailing down the Nile in a china cup

With the recipe for a lovely day

Sticking out of my back pocket

But it wasn't always such a pretty sight

'cos we used to fight like cats and dogs

Till we made it up in the ballroom

Ballroom dancing, made a man of me

One, two, three, four

I just plain adore your

Ballroom dancing, seen it on TV

I got what I got from ballroom dancing

Big B.D.

Well I used to fly when I was a kid

And I didn't cry if it hurt a bit

On a carpet ride to a foreign land

At the time of Davy Crockett

But it wasn't always such a pretty sight

'cos we used to fight like cats and dogs

Till we made it up in the ballroom

Ballroom dancing, made a man of me

One, two, three, four

I just plain adore

Your ballroom dancing, seen it on TV

I got quite a lot from ballroom dancing

Big B.D

Well it went so fast and we all grew up,

Now the days that passed in the china cup

Are the memories of another day

And I wouldn't want to knock it

But it wasn't always such a pretty sight,

'cos we used to fight like cats and dogs

Till we made it up in the ballroom

Ballroom dancing made a man of me

One, two, three, four

I just plain adore

Your ballroom dancing, seen it on TV

I got quite a lot from ballroom dancing

Big B.D.

Oh!

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

See all bootlegs containing “Ballroom Dancing”

Live performances

Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert.

Going further

Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989

With 25 albums of pop music, 5 of classical – a total of around 500 songs – released over the course of more than half a century, Paul McCartney's career, on his own and with Wings, boasts an incredible catalogue that's always striving to free itself from the shadow of The Beatles. The stories behind the songs, demos and studio recordings, unreleased tracks, recording dates, musicians, live performances and tours, covers, events: Music Is Ideas Volume 1 traces McCartney's post-Beatles output from 1970 to 1989 in the form of 346 song sheets, filled with details of the recordings and stories behind the sessions. Accompanied by photos, and drawing on interviews and contemporary reviews, this reference book draws the portrait of a musical craftsman who has elevated popular song to an art-form.

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