Into the Nightlife

Masked within this seemingly light-hearted anthem about club-going is a tale about mortality. Cyndi sings as the personification of death, a romanticized figure which ultimately no soul can resist.

Reminiscent of Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me" ... In which death is a figure, ineluctable, a visitor embodied like in Bergman's The Seventh Seal. It seduces us, charms us, takes us off and away into the darkness, or rather... into the life of the night.

Here's some thoughts on the meaning of the specific lyrics:

Into the nightlife = I'll take you into "heaven". Let me invite you into the darkness.

I'll take ya till ya all spun up = I'll confuse you until you're not sure what you want.

Shake your body mister/ Gonna make your body blister = the throes of agony we go through to achieve death, illness

Endless itch to ride = the disease process, sickness.

I think Cyndi had many close friends who died of AIDS, can't help wondering if this references that. But in a triumphant, disguised way. She imagines them celebrating at the eternal party in the sky. Her loved ones who've died have dissolved into love. = "I'll take ya till ya all spun up/ And in love / Into the nightlife / And in love"

Pitter patter doesn't matter what you got = our earthly possessions don't matter when death comes for us, rich or poor.

Pitter patter= the sneakiness of death, the quick light steps that take you there, how it can come unexpectedly for us, the surprise of sudden violence.

Don't want to have to make you = I am death, you must surrender and if you fight, I will force you but I do not want to force you

All spun up and in love= we ultimately stay with death forever, like a perfect marriage, we are "in love" forever.

Dress for you tonight = it's a sacrament, the rituals of burial, how people are coiffed and dressed up to go into their coffins, i.e. Marilyn wore the green Puccini gown.

Shot up like a satellite = a drug reference, a way that some people die, or simply that our souls go into outer space, a place so far away only reachable through space travels. "Spun" is urban slang for the highs obtained by crystal meth, as evidenced by the Jonas Akerlund-directed movie.

Leave em standing waitin' till their practically faintin' = the slow drawn out process, people in hospitals/hospices, faintin' as they're waiting for their entrance into this world.

Shirtless wonders wreck my sight= the regalness of death, it's dressed like a king but we come in our birthday suits. Naked we come into the world and naked we leave it. The impudence of being nude. The wonder of the body, this complex machinery.

This song is haunting and chilling and brilliant. Cyndi, in this incredible song like in many of her other tunes, introduces more depth than one would think possible. In the video ghostly figures dance behind her. She's seen as bodiless face, black clothing blending into the background. Her skin is pale as a corpse, her eyes shaded goth-style, trippy swirls loom and beckon from behind her.

Jubilant and joyous yet edged with an undercurrent of wonderful creepiness, the listener is not sure if he wants to accept her sinister invitation to go into the nightlife.