Composition
"If I Can't Dance" was written by Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Dimitri Tikovoi, while production was handled by Tikovi, with additional production by Brio Taliaferro and Jeremy Wheatley. It draws from dance pop, electropop and disco genres. The song is a reference to the famous quote from Emma Goldman, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution". Goldman never said these exact words but she did convey this idea in an encounter with a young revolutionary that she mentions in her autobiography Living My Life. Lyrically, it finds Sophie tartly telling her stiff limbed lover, "Oh darling, don't be so unkind / The beat must never be denied".
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