Save The Last Dance For Me · The Drifters · 1960

  Play the song.  

This song was written for the Drifters by the prolific songwriting team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. The two of them also wrote “This Magic Moment”, which was also a big hit for Ben E. King and the Drifters.

And they wrote many songs for other artists as well. (25 songs for Elvis, including: “Little Sister”, “His Latest Flame”, “A Mess of Blues”, and “Suspicion”; and for Dion & The Belmonts: “A Teenager In Love”, and for Bobby Darin: “Plain Jane”.)

On average, when the two colaborated, Doc wrote 80 percent of the lyrics and 20 percent of the melody. This fact was never more apparent than in the song “Save The Last Dance For Me”.

Before becoming an extremely successful songwriter in those early years of rock and roll, Doc Pomus had been a successful blues singer—and a successful white blues singer at that! And another thing about Doc: he had been crippled since childhood by polio.

With success as both a singer and a songwriter, Doc and his partner, Mort, set up shop in New York City, where they cranked out music through the fifties.

Doc was married to an actress (Willi Burke) at that time. In those days, rock and roll was not very prestigious, and apparently, Willi’s Broadway friends were not particularly impressed with Doc’s chosen profession.

Nevertheless, Doc continued to write rock and roll lyrics by day and party with his beautiful blonde wife at night.

One night he was at a dance with his wife and her Broadway buddies, waiting for her to finish dancing with a room full of partners. All he could do was watch. Since childhood Doc had been confined to crutches. He couldn’t dance.

You can feel his pain in the lyrics:

Don’t forget who’s taking you home
And in whose arms you’re gonna be
So, darling, save the last dance for me