Donna Summer’s five favourite Donna Summer songs
Believing in oneself is crucial. Self-confidence and self-assurance stand as two of the most invaluable traits, ensuring that talent and accomplishments receive the recognition they deserve. Donna Summer exemplified a profound understanding of this principle.
But if the artist themselves don’t love their own music, how can they expect anyone else to? Summer put that into practice as she more than happily named her top five favourite Donna Summer songs. Standing in as her own biggest fan, her choices range from Oscar-winning hits to soundtrack cuts, ensuring all corners of her career get some love.
Her career was a wild ride. Inspired by the various countercultural pockets surrounding her in New York, including the queer ballroom scene and the alternative rock scene, she first started out as a lead singer in a rock band. Then she was in an adaptation of the hippie magnum opus musical Hair, and then somehow ended up as the ‘Queen of Disco’.
To begin, Summer honours her breakout hit, ‘I Feel Love’, in that top five favourites. “The interesting thing about that song was that we originally wrote an entire lyric for that song, and we had to make a judgment call, which was that you have a certain ego you have about writing a good lyric,” she said about the track’s simple lyricism.
“It was so simplistic that I said to Pete Bellotte, who I was writing with, that it’s really a chant and that we needed to just go for it,” she continued. “He’s English and he wanted it to be more wordy and we tried singing it that way and it just killed the song. So the judgment call was to keep it simple. I think that song has pretty much stood the test of time as well.”
Another huge hit for Summer was ‘She Works Hard For The Money’, an upbeat and empowering cut to dance to. But beyond the song’s energy, it proved a grounding force for the singer. “I was at a Grammy party the night I wrote the song and I walked into the lady’s room and I saw a woman there,” she said of the song’s inspiration. “It taught me a lot about keeping my eyes open and paying attention to the things going on around me…I think it really helped to change the way I write, so it was a pivotal song for me.”
Summer was no stranger to award shows. Another one of her picks saw her landing at the Oscars with a trophy in her hand. “‘Last Dance’ is one of my favorite songs. One, because it won an Oscar and I think we did a really wonderful job with the song,” she said of the 1978 Thank God It’s Friday soundtrack hit. “People still play it today and it’s stood the test of time. People still talk about it and tell me how much they love it. I think that has to count for something.”
Summer clearly loved her soundtrack work as she also picked ‘On The Radio’ from the 1980 film Foxes. “I love because it’s a fun song,” she said simply. “It took me a long time to write it and I love the lyric on that song. It seems to mean a lot to a lot of people, especially people that listen to the radio.”
Her final selection proves her sheer talent. Already a huge song, Summer selects a 1978 live version of ‘MacArthur Park’. Extended into a marathon 17-minute long rendition, it is a triumph of her vocal magic. “I love ‘Macarthur Park.’ I sang it one time and it was the first take and that’s what made it to the album,” she said of the one-take wonder, “I really love that because I nailed it the first time and it was a great moment for me as a singer.”
Donna Summer’s favourite songs:
- ‘I Feel Love’
- ‘She Works Hard For The Money’
- ‘Last Dance’
- ‘On The Radio’
- ‘MacArthur Park’
