Neneh Cherry, "Buffalo Stance"

In the summer of 1989, I spent a month or so on a college campus as part of a high school scholars' program for budding scientists and mathematicians. Don't remember any of the science, but I remember vividly how it felt to be living (sort of) on my own for the first time - scary but liberating. More than anything else, I remember my soundtrack of that summer: heavy doses of Prince's bizarre "Batdance," Bobby Brown's forgotten "On Our Own," Simply Red's faithful revival of "If You Don't Know Me By Now," and Neneh Cherry's giddy "Buffalo Stance."

I didn't at the time really get what "Buffalo Stance" was referring to - I thought the gigolo and the girls were just hanging out, like the teens in my hometown who loitered with their cigarettes and mini cartons of Turner's iced tea; the world of pimps & prosties was utterly foreign to me. Indeed, it would be years before I would learn that a "Buffalo Stance" is the hard, arms-tightly-crossed pose struck by people getting down to serious business on street corners.

But who needs that much realism. "Buffalo Stance," lyrics be damned, is a wild, percolating ride, with silly asides ("Wot is he loike, anyway?") and wobbling dance wiggles in a deliciously amateurish color-saturated video - which I was fortunate to see at the gym last night in all its technicolor glory. Ignore the hooking and just wobble along. You na' I mean?