Songfacts®:

• This club classic tells a tale of escape on the dance floor, where are your troubles are drowned out by the music. The lady in the song comes to the club brokenhearted and despondent, but leaves with a newfound confidence, all thanks to the DJ, who hyperbolically saved her life.
  
  The most popular song with this theme is probably "Boogie Wonderland," a 1979 hit for Earth, Wind & Fire.
• "Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life" has an unmistakably disco sound but was released in 1982 when disco was a punch line and New Wave acts with their fancy synthesizers were all the rage. The song got plenty of spins at dance clubs (in part because it fed the egos of the DJs, who were happy to play a song glorifying themselves) but earned very little radio play. In the US, it stalled at #101.
  
  In the 2010s, disco came back to life with songs like "Get Lucky" and "Blurred Lines." This was also when streaming was starting to take off with various discovery features, so a new generation got a listen to the song and gave it new life.
• "Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life" is one of the first singles with a rap interlude, done by Indeep mastermind Michael Cleveland. He's not a rapper, but you didn't have to be in 1982. Cleveland just talks with a rap cadence to tell the DJ side of the story, letting the lady know she can always come to him when she's feeling dispirited.
  
  The rap in the song is along the lines of Debbie Harry's in the 1980 Blondie hit "Rapture." Rap was just starting to percolate into popular music, with acts like Kurtis Blow and Afrika Bambaataa leading the way.
• During the disco era, DJs were a pretty big deal - a good beat-mixer could make or break a dance club. Post disco, it was more about song selection as dance music branched in different directions. In the world of hip-hop, though, DJs reigned supreme. They're the ones that threw the block parties and supplied the sounds. The MCs in the early '80s were usually just there to hype the crowd and celebrate the DJ. When electronic dance music (EDM) took hold in the 2010s, DJs once again became superstars, and some of them gave "Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life" the remix treatment.
• Indeep was the creation of Michael Cleveland, who was based in New York City. The singers in the outfit were Rose Marie Ramsey and Réjane Magloire, who sang lead on this song. "Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life" is their most popular song, but they also made the Dance chart with "When Boys Talk" and "The Record Keeps Spinning."
• The authors Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton used the title for their popular 1999 book Last Night A DJ Saved My Life: The History Of The Disc Jockey.