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RIP, Disco Goddess Donna Summer

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Disco diva and five-time Grammy winner Donna Summer has died of cancer at the way-too-young age of 63. In 1979, all the 12-year-olds like me AND our parents were happily singing “Toot toot, ahhhh, beep beep!” along with her song “Bad Girls,” which was about prostitutes. Good clean family fun!

My best friend and I used to call into a local radio station to request Donna’s songs “Hot Stuff” and “On the Radio” if an hour went by without our hearing at least one of those.

Her earlier hit, the orgasmic “Love to Love You Baby,” was also popular with all ages.

Nowadays, when people complain that pop stars like Rihanna are too sex-ay, I think, “You don’t know Donna.”

Donna had the ideal disco hairdo …

We all wished for hair like this.

… and wore amazing outfits.

Click for photo source.

Fame and fortune often result in a lot of unhappiness. During her most professionally successful years, Donna struggled with depression and addiction, attempting suicide more than once. At the end of the ’70s, she became a born-again Christian. That led to a controversy in the mid-’80s, when she was rumored to have said that AIDS was God’s way of punishing gay people, who just so happened to be some of her biggest fans. She vehemently denied the accusations. In 2007, she performed at One Mighty Weekend, a gay event that raised money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

The year before that, the late (gay) designer Alexander McQueen made a jaded fashionista audience applaud, cheer and whistle when he used a stunning holographic image of model Kate Moss in the presentation of his Fall 2006 collection. A moment like that needs to be followed by big finale. What song did McQueen choose for his models’ final runway walk? “Last Dance” by Donna Summer.

A fitting tribute from one style icon to another.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. What a shock and what a tragedy.

    In 1979, I was 16 and my friends used to sing that song all the time, Can’t say we were badass but we loved that song.

  5. I didn’t know much about her background, but she’s such a childhood memory and will always be my discoqueen heroine.

  7. McQueen playing Last Dance gave me chills just now. Weird. I loved Bad Girls and Love to Love You.
    She was f-ing great. 🙁

  8. Her songs evoke so many memories, prancing around my bedroom whilst singing with the aid of a hairbrush, glitterball discos with my once carefree friends, great films i.e. The Full Monty. She was so talented and has blessed many people with a host of happy memories. Thank you Donna, R.I.P. X

  10. All day as I’ve listened to the tributes for Donna, I have really been choked up and can so well remember dancing like a maniac in some of my backyard gay bars. It’s made me realize that those days are past…very, very poignant.

    • Can’t believe how many hits she had and how memorable they all are! Her post-disco “The Wanderer” has been stuck in my head. Love that one.

  14. I was so naive about “Bad Girls” I thought she was talking about picking up guys just to go dancing with them lol I had the popular songs in 45’s lol
    RIP Donna Summer
    Marti

    • I had no idea that Cher’s “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” was about an unwed teenage mother for about 20 years after that song came out!