Hi !

Prince mentions in several songs about doing the Detroit Crawl. I tried to Google that but cant' find any info on it. I guess it's a kind of dance ? Crawling on the dance floor ??

Thanks for any info

The777Man

The777Man said:

Hi !

Prince mentions in several songs about doing the Detroit Crawl. I tried to Google that but cant' find any info on it. I guess it's a kind of dance ? Crawling on the dance floor ??

Thanks for any info

The777Man

Found this:

"Detroit is well known for the manufacture of cars. In the early days, before everything was automated, workers had to crawl under the half-finished vehicles on their backs to install some of the components. Crawling around on your back eventually become known as the "Detroit Crawl". Its not a term widley used today but if ask some old timers they'll remember the expression."

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[Edited 7/20/20 3:54am]

The777Man said:

Hi !

Prince mentions in several songs about doing the Detroit Crawl. I tried to Google that but cant' find any info on it. I guess it's a kind of dance ? Crawling on the dance floor ??

Thanks for any info

The777Man

It was done on the Parade tour and SOTT tour.

If you look at the SOTT concert video they do it there.

MarcelS67 said:

The777Man said:

Hi !

Prince mentions in several songs about doing the Detroit Crawl. I tried to Google that but cant' find any info on it. I guess it's a kind of dance ? Crawling on the dance floor ??

Thanks for any info

The777Man

Found this:

"Detroit is well known for the manufacture of cars. In the early days, before everything was automated, workers had to crawl under the half-finished vehicles on their backs to install some of the components. Crawling around on your back eventually become known as the "Detroit Crawl". Its not a term widley used today but if ask some old timers they'll remember the expression."

on wood platform grids with rollers, so your legs stuck out funny.

The bigger mystery is....

WHAT THE ^%^$# IS THE ROCK???!!

Prince wrote "The Rock" about a dance that was popular in and around early 1981...that song eventually became "Let's Work", as you all know...

BUT WHAT WAS 'THE ROCK'??!!!

soladeo1 said:

Wolfie87 said:

https://64.media.tumblr.c...1_400.gifv

Thanks for the link! That explains it very well

The777Man

RJOrion said:

soladeo1 said:

The bigger mystery is....

WHAT THE ^%^$# IS THE ROCK???!!

Prince wrote "The Rock" about a dance that was popular in and around early 1981...that song eventually became "Let's Work", as you all know...

BUT WHAT WAS 'THE ROCK'??!!!

it was a dance we did in New York, very late 70s...Morris Day is doing a version of it in the Jungle Love video...

Interesting! Was it the one that was sort of a side to side shuffle (around the microphone) or was it the one where you stayed in one place and bounced on your toes like a sashe but didn't turn your body?

soladeo1 said:

RJOrion said:

soladeo1 said:

Interesting! Was it the one that was sort of a side to side shuffle (around the microphone) or was it the one where you stayed in one place and bounced on your toes like a sashe but didn't turn your body?

morris does it during the hook...peaches and herb in the video below, from about 1:15 - 1:35 morris just exaggerates the movements more, of course https://youtu.be/Hz2Cv6Zb9a0 [Edited 7/20/20 12:56pm]

That's awesome! Thanks for the education. I was always baffled by this reference as a young white kid growing up in Maine.

poppys said:

on wood platform grids with rollers, so your legs stuck out funny.

Aren't they called a creeper? (At least that is what I remember my dad who is a mechanic calling them at his garage/service station.)

RJOrion said:

morris does it during the hook...peaches and herb in the video below, from about 1:15 - 1:35 morris just exaggerates the movements more, of course https://youtu.be/Hz2Cv6Zb9a0

And MJ had his own verison in "Rock With You."

The777Man said:

Hi !

Prince mentions in several songs about doing the Detroit Crawl. I tried to Google that but cant' find any info on it. I guess it's a kind of dance ? Crawling on the dance floor ??

Thanks for any info

The777Man

SBartist said:

poppys said:

on wood platform grids with rollers, so your legs stuck out funny.

Aren't they called a creeper? (At least that is what I remember my dad who is a mechanic calling them at his garage/service station.)

that's cool! makes sense.

on at least 2 occasions he's changed it depending on where he was playing or how he was feeling. in paris 87 he changed it to jill jones crawl and on another occasion, the melvoin crawl

tab32792 said:

on at least 2 occasions he's changed it depending on where he was playing or how he was feeling. in paris 87 he changed it to jill jones crawl and on another occasion, the melvoin crawl

as someone FROM Detroit but who never worked in the plants. i can say this never caught on as a local dance. my thought was always the clip in the U Got the Look vid where Prince leads a rhythmic stage crawl briefly, on the thier knees, NOT their backs. i choose to keep my belief that that's what it REALLY is.

datdude said:

This question always goes this way without fail. Lack of a definitive answer.