Thrill 4-2: The dance of love {Sweet the Sting}

Bear with me here, I will get to the point eventually.

Ballroom dancing seems to be undergoing yet another revival here in Australia in the last couple of years. There are currently two shows of it regularly screening on television. I'd like to think that someone finally noticed that Baz Luhrmann's film 'Strictly Ballroom' creates a spike of interest in dance classes every time it's shown, although the more cynical side of me fears the revival has more to do with the appalling Richard Gere remake of a Japanese film on the same subject (please, casting him in the role of a socially awkward man who takes up dance classes?).

Anyway, the effect of this revival on me is that I get to hear quite a bit of music for the different kinds of dances. They often use pop songs, and it's quite enlightening to realise that Song X has the rhythm of a particular dance. Over time, I've become a lot more familiar with the essentials of some of the more frequently shown dances.

Which is why I'm pretty darn sure that "Sweet the Sting" is a rumba.

Absolutely everything about it screams rumba, actually. The kind of percussion used (I think this is what the press releases meant by "Afro-Cuban"), the tempo, even the lyrics with their hints of double meaning (when's the last time you heard someone was wearing a hat "cocked sure", for goodness' sake?!). Over and over again both the shows on TV have reminded me that the rumba is known as 'the dance of love', and I'd say this is precisely what Tori was aiming for.

It's a damn good rumba. I have half a mind to write to 'Strictly Dancing' to tell them there's a new song to add to their repertoire.