"Dirty Dancing": I've had the time of my life

It is a movie that really launched the career of Patrick Swayze, but what I will always remember about that movie is the music.

The soundtrack spawned three hit singles, garnering Grammys, Oscars and a lot of airplay.

Hearing those songs always reminds me of one of the best times in my life, one of transition and change.

The movie
Awhile back, I watched “Dirty Dancing” on DVD with my step-daughter. It is a love story, set in the 1960s, where a young woman, played by Jennifer Grey, falls in love with the dance instructor at the resort she is staying at for the summer.

What sets “Dirty Dancing” apart is the dancing and the music. They almost become their own character in the movie.

Signature song
Long before I knew the movie “Dirty Dancing”, I knew its signature song, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. It was released in July of 1987 and was part of the soundtrack of the summer between Grade 12 and first year of university. It was playing when we cruised the streets of Coaldale and Lethbridge the last few weeks we were home, played on the radio on our move to Edmonton, and was a mainstay on MuchMusic the first few months of university.

“(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” went all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1987; the Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals in 1988; and a Golden Globe for Best Original Song in 1988.

Song memories
One outstanding memory I had was about a month into school. I was coming home from class around 2 p.m. I lived on the top floor of my tower and regularly took the elevator home. This day, as the doors opened, my friend Kim was in the lounge.

For whatever reason, I looked at her and sang, “Now I’ve, had, the time of my life.”

Without missing a beat, she looked at me and sang, “Though I never felt this way before.”

Then we sang the song, dancing around the lounge – and there was no one else around.

It was cool, and cheesey all at the same time.

There have been many different versions of the song since then, but the one I remember best is about seven or eight years ago when I went to a show at the New West Theatre in Lethbridge. It was a medley production and the cast performed, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”. It was awesome because it was live, and not over produced or engineered.

Second song
Before “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” ran its course, a second single from “Dirty Dancing” was released. This one, called “Hungry Eyes”, was recorded by Eric Carmen, who at that time was best known for his single, “All By Myself”.

It was released in November of 1987 and went all the way to number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1988. My outstanding memory of the song was the video, and the scene from the movie where Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze are practising their dancing in a lake and Swayze is lifting Grey out of the water over his head.

Song memories
The second semester of university I took a statistics class with a professor named Gian Jhangri. Instantly, in sophomoric humour fashion, I started singing “Jhangri Eyes”. A friend of mine picked up on it. Any time we were talking about school and he referred to that stats class, he just sang, “Jhangri Eyes” and I knew what it meant.

It was a dad joke before dad jokes.

He sings too
Perhaps, the most interesting song was the third single that made it to the radio.

At first, I thought I had misheard.

Then I saw the music video of “She’s Like the Wind” on the big screen TV at Angelo’s, a pizza place across the street from res that we went to often.

There, singing, “…Just a fool to believe…” was Patrick Swayze. He not only starred in the movie but he sang too.

He was accompanied by vocalist Wendy Fraser, something I only learned after 33 years when researching this post

The single was released in December of 1987 and went all the way to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

Watching the movie
Seeing the movie on DVD actually closed a circle that began in 1987. “Dirty Dancing” was one of the first movies I saw after I moved to Edmonton to attend university. I had spent so much time staying up late, hanging out, chatting with people, and just getting used to university life that I was tired all the time.

Consequently, I fell asleep during the movie in the theatre, and actually lost the flow of the plot. That was in the fall of 1987.

By the spring of 1988, “Dirty Dancing” had come out on video. One of my friends, who lived down the hall, took to renting a VCR every weekend, and had little mini-movie nights in his room some Fridays but usually Saturday nights.

One night, he rented “Dirty Dancing”. Again, I started watching the movie, but again found myself nodding off, so I just ducked out.

Since then, I read a biography of Patrick Swayze and listened to the music, but it was not until I watched the movie with Amber that I saw the whole movie, uninterrupted, in its entirety.

Parting thoughts
It is interesting that “Dirty Dancing” is set in the 1960s, conjuring up memories of that period. Yet, the movie is 33 years old and conjures up a whole different set of memories for me.

Every time I hear “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”, “Hungry Eyes”, or “She’s Like the Wind”, I am transported back to my first year of university.

It was an amazing, life-altering time.

I distinctly recall, as my best friend Chris Vining and I were leaving Edmonton for the final time at the end of that first year of university, the spring of 1988, we were looking back on the past year.

At one point, I jokingly started singing, “Now I’ve had, the time of my life”.

Funny thing is, looking back, I did.