Dim All the Lights

"Dim All the Lights"
Single by Donna Summer
from the album Bad Girls
B-side	"There Will Always Be a You"
Released	August 1979
Format	7" 12"
Recorded	1979
Genre	Disco soul
Length	4:40 (album version) 3:59 (single edit)
Label	Casablanca
Songwriter(s)	Donna Summer
Producer(s)	Giorgio Moroder Pete Bellotte
Donna Summer singles chronology
"Bad Girls" (1979) "Dim All the Lights" (1979) "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" (1979)
"Bad Girls" (1979) "Dim All the Lights" (1979) "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" (1979)
Bad Girls track listing
"Walk Away" (4) "Dim All the Lights" (5) "Journey to the Center of Your Heart" (6)

"Dim All the Lights" is a song by American recording artist Donna Summer that bowed at #70 on 25 August 1979 and peaked at #2 on 10–17 November 1979 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was blocked from becoming the third number one hit from the album by "Heartache Tonight" by the Eagles the first week and "Still" by Commodores the next week. Taken from her Bad Girls album and produced by her longtime collaborator Giorgio Moroder with Pete Bellotte, the track combines Summer's trademark disco beats with a more soulful pop sound. This was the third Hot 100 top two single from the album and her sixth consecutive Hot 100 top five single.

Background

Summer had released "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls" and, later, the "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" duet with Barbra Streisand, all of which reached position 1. "Dim All the Lights" was another massive hit for her, reaching number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and number 29 on the UK Singles Chart. Like "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls" before, "Dim All The Lights" and "No More Tears" were simultaneously in the top three, but missed having the top two positions, on the Hot 100.^[1]

"Dim All the Lights" was Summer's only hit single that she wrote alone. She had originally intended to give the song to Rod Stewart but changed her mind. The song was nominated for Best Disco Recording at the 22nd Grammy Awards in 1980.^[2]

According to Billboard, the song is about sex.^[3]

The recording is remarkable for a sustained note held by Summer for about sixteen seconds.^[2]

The record's flip side, "There Will Always Be a You," also received some airplay and was charted as an album cut on some North American radio stations (notably CKLW in Windsor, Ontario, where it reached number two in October 1979; interestingly, "Dim All the Lights" never charted on that station).^[4]

Official versions

• Album version – 4:40
• 7" version – 3:59
• 12" version – 7:09

Chart history

Laura Branigan version

"Dim All the Lights"
Single by Laura Branigan
from the album The Best of Branigan
Released	1995
Format	CD 12" cassette
Genre	Pop dance
Length	4:44
Label	Atlantic
Songwriter(s)	Donna Summer
Producer(s)	Brinsley Evans
Laura Branigan singles chronology
"How Can I Help You to Say Goodbye" (1994) "Dim All the Lights" (1995)
"How Can I Help You to Say Goodbye" (1994) "Dim All the Lights" (1995)

Laura Branigan had a Top 40 Dance hit in 1995 with her cover version. The single version appears on her US hits collection, The Best of Branigan.^[7] While Branigan's version was released in several mixes by Atlantic Records, a popular version in some Hi-NRG clubs at the time came from the DJ-only label Hot Traxx, which gave clubgoers two singers in one song, editing Donna Summer's original in with Branigan's remake. A video for the single, showing Branigan surrounded by a bevy of drag queens (Miss Understood, Hedda Lettuce and Vivacious), was her last, and the release was the end of her association with the label, as she left the music industry to care for her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer.

Track listings

Charts

Other cover versions

In 2007, the song was sampled by the French electronic duo Justice, for the song "B.E.A.T.", which is a re-edit of their song "D.A.N.C.E.".

References