Songfacts®:

• "Just Dance" was Lady Gaga's first single, bringing us into her world where inhibitions and pants are purely optional. The song finds her getting drunk and disoriented at a nightclub - she tells herself to just dance, and everything will be OK.
• Lady Gaga, Akon, and the song's producer, RedOne, teamed up to write "Just Dance." She was signed to Interscope Records, which teamed her with the pair. Akon had a lot of juice at the label thanks to his 2006 hits "I Wanna Love You" and "Smack That." RedOne was a rising star, having done remixes for Christina Aguilera and Shakira.
  
  Akon also sang backing vocals on the track and recorded a verse as a featured artist, but label entanglements forced him to lose the feature, so he had a singer named Colby O'Donis, who was signed to his KonLive label, do it instead. O'Donis and Akon previously teamed on the songs "What You Got" and "Beautiful." O'Donis faded from the spotlight soon after "Just Dance" was released.
• Lady Gaga wrote "Just Dance" soon after flying from New York to Los Angeles to work on The Fame album. She knew she'd be in LA for a while, so she had a big farewell party before she left New York and was hungover when she arrived.
  
  She got right to work at Record Plant studios with RedOne and Akon, using the previous night's party and subsequent hangover as inspiration for the song.
  
  "I was taken very quickly out of my party lifestyle," she told HX Magazine. "I wrote it instantly - like it flew out of my body."
  
  In the same interview she said the meaning of the song is, "If you've ever been so high that it's, like, scary, the only way you can deal with it is not deal with it, so you just kind of dance through the intoxication."
• The music video takes place in an apartment, not a club, in the aftermath of a rager.
  GaGa told About.com: "That video was a vision of mine. It was Molina the director who wanted to do something, to have a performance art aspect that was so pop but it was still commercial, but that felt like lifestyle."
• Lady Gaga worked up a dance routine to this song and made the rounds performing it on TV programs, including So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing With The Stars, and various talk shows. At every stop she was asked how she got her stage name, and every time, she answered with alacrity (it's from the Queen song "Radio Ga Ga" - her real name is Stefani Germanotta.
  
  Another talking point she often hit was the years she spent performing in clubs as she developed her vision and honed her skills.
• GaGa explained on her website that the underlying theme of The Fame album "is about how anyone can feel famous. Pop culture is art. It doesn't make you cool to hate pop culture, so I embraced it and you hear it all over The Fame. But, it's a sharable fame. I want to invite you all to the party. I want people to feel a part of this lifestyle."
• "Just Dance" was a global hit, topping the tallies in Canada and Australia in 2008 before going to #1 in the UK and US in 2009. She followed it up with "Poker Face," another global hit which in April 2009 went to #1 in America.
• This was the first #1 song on the Hot 100 to include the word "dance" since February 1991, when by C + C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" ascended to the top position.
• "Just Dance" was released as a single on April 8, 2008 and entered the Hot 100 on August 16. It took its sweet time climbing to the top, finally reaching #1 on January 17, 2009, 22 weeks after it entered. That was the longest trip to the top since Creed's "With Arms Wide Open" reached #1 in its 27th week in November 2000.
• Lady Gaga performed this song at the inaugural NewNowNext Awards, which were broadcast on the Logo network in June 2008. Logo is targeted to the gay community, which comprises much of Lady Gaga's fan base. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Bertrand - Paris, France
• "Just Dance" helped introduce a techno-synth sound to America that had been big in Europe for years. The song's producer, RedOne, told Billboard magazine that the song, "was essentially a rock track but with synths instead of guitars. Big drums. The vocals were the melody, with a simple chorus. Thank God we were lucky and it was perfect timing. The moment the public heard it, they bought into it."
  
  The song helped open the door for Kesha, who had a huge hit with "TiK ToK" at the end of 2009.
• "Just Dance" is a consistent crowd-pleaser and has stayed in the setlist for most of Lady Gaga's live shows. She included it in the set for her 2017 Super Bowl performance in Houston, Texas.
• This was used on The Office in the season 5 episode "Michael Scott Paper Company." Michael listens to it on his way to work and claims it's a Britney Spears song. It was also used on these TV shows:
  
  Bones ("The Drama In The Queen" - 2014)
  The Simpsons ("Moe Letter Blues" - 2010)
  The Inbetweeners ("Will's Birthday" - 2009)
  Dollhouse ("Ghost" - 2009)
• According to Akon, Interscope Records boss Jimmy Iovine tried to direct this song to the Pussycat Dolls when he heard it. Akon talked him out of it.
• At the beginning of the song, Gaga says, "RedOne," shouting out her producer. She then says her own name, which any branding expert will tell you is good marketing.