Prepare To Be Swept Off Your Feet With Josh Turner’s “Why Don’t We Just Dance” 

Ten years ago, Josh Turner scored his third No. 1 hit with his song “Why Don’t We Just Dance,” and his longest stay at the top for four weeks. It was released in 2009 as the lead-off single from his album Haywire.

The song also received mostly positive reviews from music critics. Juli Thanki of Engine 145, for instance, gave it a thumbs up. She described it as a “three minutes of escapist fun, and Turner’s charming performance on the track is further proof that he’s one of country music’s most talented young A-listers; this may not be the greatest vocal turn of his career, but it’s still a pleasure to listen to.”

Bobby Peacock of Roughstock, on the other hand, showed his appreciation by describing it as “a step in the right direction.” He thought the performance of Turner “recall[ed] the seductive swagger of Conway Twitty” and commended the production for successfully making “an infectious, syncopated rhythm and a catchy melody that shows off the deeper end of Josh’s range quite effectively.”

The Story Behind The Song

Written by Jonathan Singleton, Darrell Brown, and Jim Beavers, “Why Don’t We Just Dance” tells the tale of a man who suggests to his lover that they dance in the living room to forget each other’s troubles.

“So baby, why don’t we just dance. Down the hall, maybe straight up the stairs? Bouncing off the wall, floating on air. Baby, why don’t we just dance?” the song goes.

Josh Turner revealed that the song caught his ear the very first time he listened to it. “It’s an up-tempo, traditional Country song that has a very catchy melody with a lyric that poses the question ‘why don’t we just dance?’ and forget about all of the bad stuff going on in the world and just concentrate on each other,” he added.

Brown has also shared a glimpse of how they come up with the song. “We came up with the idea of writing a song about not caring about anything else in the world, and Jim mentioned ‘Why Don’t We Just Dance,'” he said. “Jonathan and I looked at each other and said, “I love that!” It turned into a song about just throwing all your cares away and [being] happy. Jonathan sang on the demo. He’s so soulful; it was so much fun.”

The three songwriters were originally interested “in doing more R&B groove stuff in our songs. The song kind of ended up being a line dance by the end of it, but we never set it out to be that way.”

Still, “Why Don’t We Just Dance” ended up a chart-topper. Watch Josh Turner’s breathtaking performance of the song below.