The Making Of Its All Over My Face

"The title and lyrics of "Love Dancing"—it was later retitled "Is It All Over My Face?"—were penned after Donald Murk caught Arthur dancing with another man at the Buttermilk Bottom"

There's a wonderful piece over on RA taken from Tim Lawrence's book on Arthur Russell which describes events leading up to the making of this timeless dance classic.

Definitely a must read for anyone into the history of modern day dance music, especially from a disco perspective.

Tales of capturing the energy of the full moon to using David Mancuso's speakers from The Loft on Prince Street in the studio to old Buddhist Monk philosophy, it's all captured nicely in Lawrence's extract relating to one of the definitive dance music records of all time.

Extract

I caught you love dancing

The title and lyrics of "Love Dancing"—it was later retitled "Is It All Over My Face?"—were penned after Donald Murk caught Arthur dancing with another man at the Buttermilk Bottom. "I lost track of Arthur and it was getting to closing time," remembers Murk. "I found Arthur dancing with some cute guy, and there was some communication between Arthur and the guy that made me angry, because I was serially monogamous at the time." Realizing that Arthur and the guy would have gone off together if he hadn't been around, Murk was disturbed. "I insisted we go home then and there. When I said that I knew what was going on he replied, 'I guess it was all over my face.''

"The Making Of It's All Over My Face"