Teachable Moments: John Michael Montgomery's ‘Life's a Dance'
For him, life is all about the art of the dance, and his breakout hit, 'Life's a Dance,' embodies this philosophical outlook. The classic country song provides moral support while guiding listeners on how to gracefully navigate life's ups and downs.
Lessons Learned
A detail of John Michael Montgomery's 1992 album cover for "Life's A Dance." Internet Archive.
Public Domain
In the fall of 1992, Montgomery released the leading single and title track to his debut album, 'Life's a Dance.' The folksy country song with a memorable violin riff opens with the narrator missing out on a chance at young love because he was too scared to talk to the girl he fancied. This missed opportunity acts as the catalyst for the message of the song, which is driven home by the chorus lyrics.
Life's a dance
You learn as you go
Sometimes you lead
Sometimes you
follow.
As listeners follow along with the narrator's journey, a coming-of-age story takes place, with many lessons learned, including how to communicate effectively and embrace adversit
y.
The longer I live the more I believe,
You do have to give if you wanna receive
There's a time to listen, a time to talk
And you might have to crawl even after you walk.
From the Back Porch to the Stage
The single's gentle nature and lyrical honesty regarding life's highs and lows resonated with country music listeners in the early 1990s. 'Life's a Dance' climbed all the way to the fourth spot on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, creating a solid foundation for the performer. Several number one hits followed, including 'I Love the Way You Love Me,' the follow up to his debut 'Life's a Dance' single.
Though Montgomery didn't realize it at the time, songs like 'Life's a Dance' were more milestones than stepping stones—ones that would set him up as a performer of timeless country songs, whose specialty is found in the contemplative and romantic ballad.
During an
Related Stories
5/7/2025
4/28/2025
'I think back to when I was just playing … in Central Kentucky, and Lexington, I didn't have a clue what was going to happen. I knew I was going to be picking and singing the rest of my life, whether that was on somebody's back porch or on the stage.'
He continued, sharing how the tune, penned by songwriters Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin, reflected much of his own life as well.
'I was fortunate enough to be discovered here in Kentucky, and to be able to come up with a song like 'Life's a Dance' to kick the career off, that's pretty much how my life was—my dad was a guitar player and singer, and my mom played drums and sang. … It was a really cool way of growing up.'
Included in his musical family is brother Eddie Montgomery, one-half of the country music duo, Montgomery Gentry. In 2017, Troy Gentry passed away in a tragic helicopter accident. Eddie still performs under their band's name in honor of his dear friend and late music partner.
A 'Funny Part to the Story'
A compact disc insert with John Michael Montgomery's portrait from his 1992 album "Life's A Dance." Internet Archive.
Public Domain
Despite his unexpected, rapid success with 'Life's a Dance,' there was a time when a fan could hear Montgomery play his hit single for just a few dollars. Even after the song debuted, he fulfilled his show commitments to several modest live music venues in Lexington, Kentucky. He referred to this time during his early performance days as a 'funny part to the story.'
'I had some shows booked off of 'Life's a Dance,' but they weren't until down the road. I've still got to make a living. You could pay five bucks to come in and hear me sing 'Life's a Dance.''
Recently, Montgomery
'I'll never forget the first time I stepped foot on a tour bus for my first show back in 1992, with my first single 'Life's a Dance' just coming out on radio. It was so surreal to me. And of course like any new artist would, I worried about how long it would last and hoped it would not be a 'flash in the pan' career. So every album, every song, and every year of being able to do what I love for so many years, and for the fans who have supported me and my music, I've cherished those moments very deeply.'
Whether playing for large arena crowds or an intimate venue, Montgomery views his gifts of making music and sharing it with people as a blessing.
'I'm enjoying my life getting to go up and down the road singing the hits I was fortunate to have, and the fans still seem to enjoy them. I love being on the road picking and singing—that was always my biggest reason for being in the music business and to be able to get up on stage and sing songs for people is something I am blessed to do.'
What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Why Rüfüs Du Sol's Rose Bowl concert marks the peak of the band's L.A. journey
In a Burbank rehearsal studio, loaded almost wall-to-wall with electronics and travel cases, the three musicians of Rüfüs Du Sol are in the final hours of rehearsal for the biggest tour of their lives. As they run through a variety of songs on synthesizers and acoustic drums, the main question still to be answered is just how much of themselves to give. It's a rainy day back in March, as the Australian trio work through different live sets for different situations — festivals, arenas, large amphitheaters and, most significantly, their own slate of stadium headline shows. For the latter, Rüfüs Du Sol is prepared with a super-sized set list that singer-keyboardist Tyrone Lindqvist calls 'the Behemoth,' and drummer James Hunt describes as 'the Beast, the Hulk.' 'We've had so much love from our fans and consistent people coming to the shows,' says Lindqvist, blond and dressed in black behind his synth station. 'Our show sits at two hours and 10 minutes in this demoed version, and we're like, is this too long? At what point are we doing too much? Sometimes less is more, and finding that sweet spot is a little tricky. 'You're grappling with the extreme love that you have from people and trying to find the balance.' The Australian band is not new at this. The last time Rüfüs Du Sol headlined in Los Angeles, the band played three sold-out nights at the 22,000-capacity Banc of California Stadium in 2021. Now, they're headed to the Rose Bowl this Saturday, capping off the North American leg of their 2025 tour in support of the band's latest album, 'Inhale / Exhale.' With keyboardist Jon George, they are three stylish men in black who founded their alternative electronic dance music, or EDM, trio in Sydney, Australia, back in 2010 and have since taken their music to major venues around the world. The Rose Bowl show in Pasadena will be their biggest headline show ever, with close to 60,000 fans. In concert terms, Rüfüs Du Sol has become one of the top-selling EDM acts in the world. The trio also fits in easily at both major dance events and at multi-genre festivals like Coachella and this year's Lollapalooza. Rüfüs Du Sol always identifies itself as a live EDM act, which is an important distinction to the band, reflecting its own history and the influences that have led it here. Among those inspirations is the Chemical Brothers, who mixed samples with live synths and other instruments to lead the 'Big Beat' EDM movement beginning in the mid-1990s. 'Our show is a spectacle. It's a live experience and there's humanity in it. There's human error. From night to night, the performance might be slightly different,' says Hunt. 'The interaction of technology with humanity has always been at the heart of the project.' 'Inhale / Exhale,' released last October, reached No. 2 on the Billboard dance music album chart. Its festive first single, 'Music is Better,' was meant as a kind of throwback to an early 2000s House sound. And 'Lately' was written in Ibiza and informed by Hunt and George's sideline performing DJ sets under the Rüfüs Du Sol name, mingling subtle drama with gospel house vocals. It was among the first songs to emerge from the new album's writing sessions. The band's last album, 'Surrender,' won a Grammy in 2022 for best dance/electronic recording for the single 'Alive.' The band is three studio albums into an ongoing relationship with Warner Records (along with several remix collections). The trio was signed to the label by Jeff Sosnow, executive vice president of A&R, and he was again marveling at their massive crowds at two July stadium dates in New Jersey. 'I looked around and I'm watching 25,000 people a night singing every word to every song in a rapturous manner,' says Sosnow. 'These are people who have bought in and they are quite passionate.' Sosnow sees potential growth still ahead for the trio, as an EDM act that incorporates some traditional songwriting structures into its dynamic electronic mix. 'They love what they do, and they are as accomplished producers as I've been around,' he adds. 'They are meticulous record makers and very hard self-critics and visionaries in their own ecosystem. They're going to probably find ways to challenge themselves, like many great artists and groups have done. They're not resting on their laurels.' When the 2025 shows began quickly selling out, band members were almost too busy finishing their album to enjoy the experience. 'I didn't think about it, I'll be honest,' says Lindqvist with a smile. 'We're pretty all-consumed in the thing that we're doing at the time. Like, right now it's the live show. But around that point, it was about finishing the album.' The band's trajectory as a live act passing through Los Angeles began with its first appearance at Echoplex in 2014, followed by the Fonda that same year, three nights at the Wiltern in 2016, three shows at the Shrine Expo Hall in 2018 — playing to 3,000 people a night — and then a headline show for 21,000 at Los Angeles State Historic Park in 2019. 'We've built this thing very incrementally, gradually,' says Hunt. 'I think that is a really cool thing to have developed, because then there are people who have listened to our music for like 10 years or have gotten married to it or have grieved a friend to it. They've had all these life experiences. It seems to be very meaningful.' The Australian trio's connection to Los Angeles runs even deeper. As they had done in other cities before — setting themselves up for a time in a house in Surrey, England, and then in Berlin — Rüfüs Du Sol spent years of quality time in L.A. after relocating to a mid-century house in Venice. Attached to the home was a garage converted into a professional recording studio, and it's where the band recorded the 2018 album 'Solace.' They remained in that house for a few years, and created a new record label named for their Venice neighborhood street: Rose Avenue Records. 'It was really good,' says Hunt of the setup. 'We could be playing drums at 6 in the morning and no one could hear it.' During that time, the trio also immersed itself in the local culture of Venice. 'It's a hub of so many artists and creatives that it had an exciting energy to it,' says Lindqvist. 'We didn't have many responsibilities outside of the band, so we moved over and it was a really cool experience.' By the time Rüfüs Du Sol got to work on what would become 'Inhale / Exhale,' the members' personal lives had gone through some major changes. They had already given up alcohol together, and now lean into a wellness lifestyle. Then Lindqvist moved to North San Diego County with his wife and young child, while Hunt and George relocated to Miami. That meant their new album was the first to be written and recorded while band members no longer resided in the same city. To reconnect creatively, the trio took several writing trips together for two weeks at a time, traveling to Austin, Texas, L.A. and Ibiza to compose new material. 'There was also an air of uncertainty at the start because we'd never done it before,' says Lindqvist. 'I was definitely nervous and you didn't know how a new record was going to come about being separate, but we obviously love making music, we love working with each other. Those two-week blocks really made it happen.' At the same time that band members scattered to different cities, they also began therapy as a group, at the suggestion of their manager. The 2004 Metallica documentary 'Some Kind of Monster' famously depicts a band struggling through therapy together, with scenes of arguments, slammed doors and much gnashing of teeth, but things were far less dramatic for Rüfüs Du Sol. 'We definitely weren't like that,' George says with a smile. 'We've been able to use it in a really cool way for ourselves to be able to just open up lines of communication and learn better practices. It's an ongoing thing for me personally and for us as a band.' Lindqvist adds, 'We'd been in a band for a lot of years, so there's been a cumulative amount of change and growth between each of us and ruptures and maybe a lack of repairs and resentments that were probably there. We all were aware that there was enough to talk about and work through.' An important step in finalizing the new album came late in the process, when the band gathered with friends and team members for a listening session at Open, the breathing, yoga and meditation studio in Venice. Guests heard the band's newest work-in-progress while wearing blindfolds. From that experience came the album's title, and the sequencing that had the album open with the ethereal, percolating track 'Inhale,' and then close with the hopeful, romantic 'Exhale.' 'Sharing those things is always vulnerable, especially when it's beyond your immediate friends,' says Hunt of revealing new music for the first time. 'So that was a really cool experience for us to hear some of these ideas almost for the first time again.' Five months after rehearsals in Burbank, Hunt and Lindqvist are on a video call from their hotel in Toronto. The band is just days away from a headline performance at Lollapalooza in Chicago, while the Rose Bowl is still looming and just a couple of weeks after that. The 'behemoth' set list has been fine-tuned since the first weeks of the tour. They are ready for Pasadena. Still, playing to ever bigger audiences has been exciting but can also be disorienting. 'Past a certain point, it's kind of hard to fully grasp how many thousands of people difference it is, at least for me,' says Hunt. 'When it comes to the showtime, there is that pressure because there's 20,000 to 30,000 people per night, which we thrive on.' For Lindqvist, the experience is both a natural step for a popular EDM act, and is unimaginably far beyond the band's beginnings in Sydney, when their goal was only to play the 500-capacity local underground venue Oxford Art Factory. 'We'd seen a lot of bands there, so playing there was like the dream,' the singer says wistfully of those early days. 'And then it kept growing. It's definitely surpassed what we had ever imagined.'
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Cardi B Unleashes Jay-Z Approved ‘Imaginary Playerz' Single: Stream It Now
With just over a month out until Cardi B's anticipated sophomore album arrives, the Bronx native follows up 'Outside' with the release of her 'Imaginary Playerz' single, which hit streaming services on Friday (Aug. 15). The track samples Jay-Z's legendary 'Imaginary Players' from his 1997 In My Lifetime, Vol. 1. Earlier this week, Cardi revealed she received a stamp of approval from Hov. More from Billboard Taylor Swift's Debut on Travis Kelce's 'New Heights' Podcast Instantly Smashes Ratings Records 'The City Loves Him': Inside MGK's Emotional Homecoming, As Cleveland Celebrates MGK Day and His 'Lost Americana' Album For Artists Like Sombr and Gigi Perez, Self-Producing Is 'An Experiment and an Adventure' 'If he didn't approve it, I probably wouldn't even feel a certain type of way neither, because it's like, 'OK, maybe I just had to come a little bit harder,'' she said in an X Spaces. 'But I'm glad that I came hard and he loved it.' Cardi announced the single on Monday (Aug. 11) while revealing the opulent cover art, which finds her in a white fur coat and sitting on the front of a matching Rolls-Royce. 'Just a lil taste of the drama. IMAGINARY PLAYERZ THIS FRIDAY,' she wrote on Instagram. It remains to be seen if Cardi will be releasing a third single before the timer expires on Am I the Drama? release date. 'Outside' debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Rhythmic Airplay and Rap Airplay charts. Cardi's sophomore LP boasts 23 tracks, including previously released singles 'Up' and 'WAP.' The Grammy-winning rapper defended her decision to keep the pair of years-old songs on the album. 'This will be the last and only time I'm gonna address this,' she wrote on X in June. 'WAP and Up are two of my biggest songs, my fans have been asking me to put them on an album, and people search for them on IOP all the time… they deserve a home.' Listen to 'Imaginary Playerz' of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Tyler, The Creator Throws a Rave in BDSM-Themed, NSFW ‘Sugar on My Tongue' Music Video
Tyler, The Creator pushes the envelope creatively, and he's at it again with his self-directed 'Sugar on My Tongue' video, which was released on Tuesday (Aug. 12). In the visual, Tyler and a potential love interest are in a white-tiled room before throwing a rave after her parents leave. Things take a turn when the scene pivots to the Grammy-winning rapper in a skin-tight black latex suit, which leans into BDSM culture with Tyler on a leash. More from Billboard Zoë Kravitz and Mom Lisa Bonet 'Destroyed' Taylor Swift's Bathroom Looking For Pet Snake During L.A. Wildfires: 'I Was Panicking' Tool and Weezer to Headline Australia's Good Things Festival Cindy Lee Announces North American Tour Dates He gets naked to turn the heat up a few notches, and then breaks out a knife to perform oral surgery on himself, cutting out his tongue. The muscular organ lies bloody in the middle of the bathroom floor before being watered, and growing to the point that the woman in the clip can ride on top of it. Fans seemed to be taken aback by Tyler's creative direction as well. 'Did not expect to wake up to tyler going full freak mode,' one person commented on the video's YouTube page. 'Sugar on My Tongue' arrived in July as part of Tyler, The Creator's party-starting Don't Tap the Glass album. Even with a shortened tracking week, the project debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 197,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending July 24, according to Luminate. 2025 is another busy year for Tyler, who hyped his feature film debut, as he's gearing up to star alongside Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow in A24's Marty Supreme film. Directed by Josh Safdie, the movie is set to hit theaters on Christmas Day, and a trailer will be released on Wednesday (Aug. 13). Watch the 'Sugar on My Tongue' video below. Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart Solve the daily Crossword
