Songfacts®:

• Here, lead vocalist June Pointer tells a love interest to come closer, touch her, and dare her to make a move. If he does this, she believes the night will end on fire.
• The first release from the Pointers Sisters' Contact album, "Dare Me" became a worldwide hit, narrowly missing the Top 10 of the US Hot 100 and also reaching the Top 20 on the UK singles chart and the Top 10 in Australia. In addition, it topped the Billboard Dance chart, the group's only #1 hit on that tally.
• The song was written by Nashville songwriters Dave Innis (pianist of the group Restless Heart) and Sam Lorber (who later penned Wynonna's 1992 Country #1 "No One Else on Earth"). Dave Innis told Songfacts that he was a writer at Warner Brothers when he penned the song. He explained: "I was a staff writer at Warner's before I was a band member of Restless Heart. And I had been doing quite a bit of session work in Nashville as a keyboard player, writing with different writers. One thing led to another, and I ended up getting signed over to Warner's as a staff writer. So typically we would look at who's cutting now and what kind of material are they looking for, and we would tailor a song for a particular artist and pitch it. And that song, 'Dare Me,' was picked up by the Pointer Sisters."
• When Songfacts asked Dave Innis how the pair put themselves in the frame of mind to write for the Pointer Sisters, he replied: "Sam Lorber and I - we did try to put ourselves in the place of what a gal might be thinking. I mean, not specifically trying to be a Pointer Sister, but a song written from a female perspective, for sure."
  
  Innis added: "There are certain things that are more gender specific and gender appropriate. You know, certain things that a woman can say that a guy's not going to be able to get away with saying."
• The Pointer Sisters filmed a video for the song at the Main Street Gym in LA where scenes for the Martin Scorsese film Raging Bull had been shot. Directed by Raging Bull cinematographer Michael Chapman, it features boxer Mark Breland and Scarface actor Steven Bauer, along with the Pointer Sisters in male drag.
• This is the song that sent American Top 40 host Casey Kasem over the edge. In September 1985, he was recording a show, coming out of "Dare Me" into a "long distance dedication" where a listener wrote in to dedicate a song to his dog Snuggles, who had died. Kasem went on a profanity-laced tirade, furious because his producers expected him to come out of an uptempo song talking about a dead dog. The meltdown never made air but circulated among disc jockeys in what became known as "the Snuggles tape." It was later posted on the internet for all to enjoy.
• Belgian-Italian producer Junior Jack topped the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart and reached #26 in the UK in 2004 with his version titled "Stupiddisco." The track lived on as a turntable hit, prompting the artist to have another go at the tune. He re-released it in 2006 with a brand new vocal from Shena (previously the voice of Michael Gray's "The Weekend") and retitled "Dare Me (Stupidisco)." This version reached #20 in the UK.