It of course began with “I Feel Love”, but there are a number of magnificent tracks from the same era that are formed with the basic recipe from that song. The recipe, of course, is a hypnotic, robotic, yet warm and organic computerized dance beat. Surely Moroder felt it was incomplete, as it was very much not digital. It is a freak of nature, something both artificial yet very unique, not exactly the same twice.

Two of her songs have taken on a special meaning for me lately, because of their subject matter:

“Working the Midnight Shift” is one of those electro-disco masterpieces that holds its own against the 30 years of music that came after. I’ve been working a late night temp job lately, so it has been the absolute jam that keeps me sane through these tougher times. It seems to be the first of what was several of her songs that feature the perspective of working women in arduous or thankless situations.

“I’m working the midnight shift for that extra little something, the things that are out of reach, I need so bad…”

• Donna Summer — Working The Midnight Shift (1977)

God damn! Her voice, her inflection, the robotic drum machine, the way the song just effortlessly glides from start to finish. It is one of several Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder/Pete Bellotte masterpieces.

“Can’t Get to Sleep At Night” has also been on heavy rotation, because I suffer from pretty bad insomnia. It’s not as “computerized” as “Working the Midnight Shift”, simply because the production value had gotten much more slick as far as the synthesizers go, but it’s still fantastic.

• Donna Summer — Can’t Get To Sleep At Night (1979)

And, of course, there is “Our Love”, a song that almost eclipses “I Feel Love” or any other song Donna sang that had the word love in it. To me, it is “I Feel Love II” — it is no less a predictor of future genres than its antecedent. Not only is that proven true by New Order’s “Blue Monday”, a song that notoriously took its sequencing pattern from “Our Love”, but the second half of the song simply predicts the future in a way few pop songs ever have.

• Donna Summer — Our Love (1979)

I still lose a bit of my breath once “Our Love” hits 4:20 — it is an absolute revelation of music. It never ceases to floor me; Donna Summer never ceases to floor me. Music like that won’t be made again.

Nothing gets me in the mood to dance like these songs — they are so good at what they do that even at 2AM in the middle of the week, I am gyrating inappropriately in my own bedroom while folding laundry. I long, long long long, for the chance to hear these in a bigger room, with a bigger audience, amongst my greater set of friends. I deserve a dance party after all these years going it alone.

So here’s a mini mixtape of Bobby O’s best songs. Click below to start:

• HOW TO PICK UP GIRLS LEARN 2 DANCE
• BIG ROCKS FROM YR VOLCANOOO!
• SPIES ARE OUT 2 GET YOU
• COULD A GIRL LIKE U AND A GUY LIKE ME EVER BE?
• U TOOK MY LOVE U TOOK MY LOVE U TOOK MY LOVE
• P-A-SS-I-O-N
• WHICH DO U CHOOSE A HARD OR SOFT OPTION?

actual track listings: Bobby Orlando — How To Pick Up Girls, Waterfront Home — Teenage Girl In Love, Roni Griffith — Spys, Bobby Orlando — German Girl, The Flirts — Helpless (You Took My Love), The Flirts — Passion, Pet Shop Boys — West End Girls (Original Mix)

However, this is just the song KYW-TV used for their Direct Connection promo spots, which aired from 1979–1980. The background images are the same ones used during the actual commercials, but the footage of the commercials themselves have been taken off of Youtube. So I snagged this for myself, in case it were to be removed like the promos themselves.  I am keeping it for cultural exposure if nothing else.

Imagine the following mixed with news reporters stating such directly connected, cocaine-fueled promises as: “I’m your direct connection — to the I-TEAM.” Or: “I’m your direct connection … to the grapevine.” (The best line of all.)

This may be one of the only TV promo jingles that would have been considered hip and par for the course in a 1979 dance club. It has the pulsing Moroder-esque beat that never gets old, with only occasional interludes of strings, interrupted by a whimsical “Whoo!”

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