Queen of Disco: Donna Summer

Introduction

Donna Summer -- nearly a decade after her death -- will always be known as the "Queen of Disco." In 2012 she passed away from lung cancer, leaving a still-unfilled spot on the dancefloor. With five Grammy wins that solidified her spot as a talented songwriter, and a sex-obsessed culture that praised her remarkable beauty, singing voice, and musical talents, it's no wonder that this bombshell-nightclub-poet still impacts us. Rising to fame in the 1970s, she co-wrote many of her own hits, such as I Feel Love, Spring Affair, On the Radio, Bad Girls, and 1983's She Works Hard for the Money, a return to Aretha Franklin's 1967 R&B Hit, Respect.

But this is a sex website, complete with a naughty chatroom, a hormonally-charged bulletin board, and smutty stories galore, so here we shall examine Miss Summer's Top 5 Sexiest Songs. Here we shall look at: Love to Love You Baby, Last Dance, Hot Stuff, Bad Girls and Dim All the Lights.

So, without further ado, shall we go ahead and do it?

Love to Love You Baby:

The song was released in 1975 on Miss Summer's second album of the same name. Love to Love You Baby was her first hit and the album version rung in at over 16 minutes and was complete with moans and sexually suggestive lyrics on how she enjoyed pleasing her lover.

Within the confines of the claustrophobic and sexual-orgyness of the song, Miss Summer "orgasmed" 23 times in this cornucopia of sex, giving blowjobs, and finally getting off on giving head. While the song is open to interpretation of how exactly she enjoyed her man, it's pretty clear what she's indicating here, leaving the definition somewhat ambiguous -- and still nailing the meaning.

In Dostoevsky's The Adolescent, the author states that every woman, deep down, wants to find a man who will make her submit to him. In this song, Donna Summer speaks (or moans) of this submission with a raw honesty. It also made her a ton of money. Why? Two words: Sex sells.

Last Dance

Released only three short years after the hit of Love to Love You Baby, Last Dance was still coated in the Disco theme, but had an all-around different ambiance when it came to the subject of lyrics.

Last Dance suggested a more romantic side of submission, expressing to the listener that her bad girl ways needed taming and that she simply needed a lover to guide her and curb her devilish and mischievous activities, as is apparent in these lyrics: "I need you by me/ Beside me, to guide me/To hold me, to scold me/'Cause when I'm bad/I'm so, so bad."

This is not a hypersexual song or speaking of doing the nasty; it's simply a romantic, fast-paced dance song. In 1978, it peaked at #3 on Billboard's Top 100 songs and rightfully so. The song suggests a sexually lost soul that is looking for confinement, but also freedom (and permission) to explore a side that may have been crushed by other men in her life.

After all, revealing our sexual side, our fantasies, fetishes and kinks to someone can be incredibly daring; it can shed light on our darkness, and in the midst of all this vulnerability we may be squashed and rejected like an ant to Godzilla.

Hot Stuff

This song is pretty straightforward and explores a universal theme, a feeling we've all had at some point: It's about someone who is lonely at night and looking for a sexual partner. That's the clinical way of putting it. In other words, Miss Summer was looking for some nookie.

Written by Pete Belotte, Harold Faltermeyer and Keith Forsey, the 12" version completes its mission in just under seven minutes.

Released in 1979 off her Bad Girls album, the song was a smash hit all over the world, nailing #1 spots on the charts in the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, and Japan, and in the Top 20 in Ireland, France, and The Netherlands.

Though rather conservative and tame compared to today's music, this song is the go-to guide if you need a push towards masturbation or heating it up with a sexual partner. The steady drumbeat, like the pounding of a racing heart, bangs without mercy among other instruments that supply the ears with an orgiastic feast.

Though not written by Miss Summer, she delivers the words with such sexuality and lust that the lyrics tumbling from her lips are almost visible in their smokiness. In this see-all-do-all ditty, Miss Summer sings about needing "hot stuff" and wanting to "bring a wild man back home". In an uncharacteristically-dominant role, Miss Summer sings "gimme little hot stuff" and "I dialed about a hundred numbers lately/I'm bound to find somebody home."

The desperation of needing sexual fulfillment makes this a personal favorite of mine. No matter if you look as glamorous as Donna Summer, have the wealth of Madonna, the elegance of Grace Kelly, or the sensuality of Vivien Leigh, we've all been in times of sexual desperation, needing (badly) someone to fill us up or wrap around us.

Bad Girls

This song, released on the album of the same name was also released in 1979 and explores the theme of prostitution and, essentially, being a streetwalker in the entertainment business. It also expresses the theme -- quite cleverly -- how we sell ourselves for love and sex.

But, with the whistles of a traffic cop rounding out this feisty hit, we have to take it in the way Miss Summer meant it when she sings: "Hey Mister, have you got a dime?/Hey Mister, do you wanna spend some time?/I got what you want, you got what I need/I'll be your baby, come and spend it on me." She also sings to streetwalkers -- without much hidden meaning -- that: "Now you and me, we're both same/but you call yourself by a different name."

Referencing the degradation, humiliation, and the need that some women have to be treated in this way, she disguises herself coolly as a woman who will gladly give a man sexual attention for pay. It's a sexy, dirty, and unusual song, touching a taboo subject while giving an autobiographical account of a woman in show business and at the same time revealing her own masochistic ways of wanting to be objectified.

Dim All the Lights

"Turn up the old Victrola." This is one of the first lines in the song, suggesting innocence and a romantic night indoors with your lover, speaking the absolute truth when she sings: "Love just don't come easy/No, it seldom does." Could truer words have been spoken in the Disco era? In one of her most racially-charged lyrics ever, Miss Summer writes: "Turn my brown body white," returning to the wanton woman she so often presented herself as.

Though she presented herself to the world this way, this song taps into another part of her personality: the woman who wants to woo and not be wooed. She's ready to stay behind closed doors with her lover and skip the nightclub scene for some fun inside -- something rare for the Queen of Disco.

Also released in 1979 off the Bad Girls album, it was in the Top 30 in countries like Canada, the US, and Ireland.

Digging into this pond we all have in our core, the flip of the stomach around someone we love or adore, she touches us with this soul song about love, romance, and intimacy, though it seems she liked to hide that part of herself -- as most us do -- behind a mask of dirt, toughness, and steel-spined fortitude that many of us possess in order to survive.

Conclusion

In short -- and not to go all feminist here -- Donna Summer represents both sides of the woman: The Virgin and the Whore. The virgin who wants to drink champagne and soak in a bed of roses and the whore who wants to be used like a woman of the night.

Donna Summer sang of these two sides in her songs so well that it's almost impossible not to identify this quality in this very special entertainer. A dedicated musical talent, a voice that could melt even a deaf man, and a beautiful bombshell that speaks for women -- without even really meaning to -- Miss Summer was a unique lady who happened to make millions on what she did best: Writing songs about love, sex, and occasionally, female empowerment (She Works Hard for the Money and No More Tears [Enough is Enough]).

She was born LaDonna Gaines in Boston, 1948. This late and great Baby Boomer showed us that a female can be sexy, smart, and can also earn one hell of a bank account while strutting her stuff.

Yes, this lady is truly something to remember and she certainly did work hard for the money.