Background
"I Wanna Dance with Somebody" was written by George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, who wrote Houston's 1985 song "How Will I Know". "How Will I Know" became successful, and as a result, they were asked to come up with another song for Houston's then-new album. Originally the song that gave Merrill and Rubican their British top ten success as Boy Meets Girl, "Waiting For a Star to Fall" was intended by the duo to be a song for Houston. The duo sent it to Arista Records, but they passed on it citing it was not suitable for Houston. Undeterred by this minor setback, the pair continued working on finding a song that would be ideal for Houston, and were inspired to come up with "I Wanna Dance with Somebody." Later on, Rubicam explained the idea behind the song:
I pictured somebody single wishing that they could find that special person for themselves. It wasn't, 'I wanna go down the disco and dance,' really. It was, 'I wanna do that dance of life with somebody'. That was the thought behind the song. So we sent our demo version off to Clive Davis and he loved it. —But, the song did not impress the producer, who again was Narada Michael Walden, who had produced "How Will I Know". He took a little more persuading with regard to the song's potential, and at first was not too keen on having Houston record it, as he felt it was too "country and western sounding." He said of it,
reminded me of a rodeo song with Olivia Newton-John singing. I love Olivia Newton-John, but for Whitney Houston it didn't seem right. I felt the song needed a much more funkier feel. I slept, dreaming about it, woke up in the morning thinking about it, wondering what am I gonna do with this dance song. So, we just jumped in the water and lo and behold a magic record was born, Houston just knocked it out and then I knew we had a good record. —Read more about this topic: I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)
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