The No. 1 Song On August 3, 1979 Sounds Even More Funky Today

Hang on, are we talkin' about the bad girls or the sad girls? We'll get to the bottom of it, don't worry. In the meantime, just bop along to Donna Summer singing the funk out of "Bad Girls." Folks were doing exactly the same thing back on August 3, 1979, when the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it stayed for a whopping five weeks.

It's really not too hard to understand why "Bad Girls" was a hit. You've got Donna Summer and also Donna Summer, plus Donna Summer. That's the most critical part of the musical equation, as Summer didn't stumble upon her moniker, "Queen of Disco," by accident. She absolutely detonated the musical world of late '70s disco when she had four No. 1 hits across 1978 and 1979, though three of these came from 1979, including "Bad Girls." Most of her 10 songs in the top 10 also came from this period, including "Last Dance" with its real, dual meaning. In other words, Summer could do no wrong in the summer of her fame, when one success snowballed into another.

But is there anything to "Bad Girls" there besides the frenzy of the late '70s musical zeitgeist? As you can guess from the premise of this article: of course. "Bad Girls" is a masterful dance track that's as surprisingly deep as it groovy even more so removed from the disco era. It also comes equipped with a backstory that places it far ahead of its time and adds to its oomph.  

Musicians looking to decode why certain disco songs still put people in a dancing mood today could do far worse than to study Donna Summer's "Bad Girls." We've got genre staples like a clean, high-stringed electric guitar, big piano chords landing on each chord transition, a plucked and syncopated bassline, etc. There's also horn blasts, background singers shouting "Hot!," some crosswalk-type whistles, and Summer going "Toot toot." Why does it all work? We'd wager a tight vocal melody, looped chord progression that demands being played again right after the song ends, and the song's synced-up rhythm section. It would have sounded funky back in 1979, but now, for elders nearly 50 years removed and younger generations who've possibly never heard disco? This song is irresistible.

But there's another component that makes "Bad Girls" extra irresistible, one that connects to why it was ahead of its time: attitude. The song overflows with uncompromising confidence, much like the people described in its subject matter: sex workers. The song's first verse says it all: "See them out on the street at night (Walkin') / Picking up all kinds of strangers, if the price is right." 

Rather than being a condemnatory track, though, "Bad Girls" comes across as a romp. The song's final thesis just might be Donna Summer's gleeful wave from the back of a cop car at the end of the song's music video. The listener might not agree with this sentiment, or have even realized what the song was about while singing, "Bad girls, talking 'bout the sad girls," but this element of "Bad Girls" definitely adds to the attitude that makes it even funkier today.