UPDATE: The original song that Walken was dancing to wasn’t “Come and Get your Love,” but “Weapon of Choice” by Fatboy Slim. The original video is here, and I’ve also embedded it below. Walken’s dancing is even more on the mark with the original song.
Still, I love the Redbone song, and have left it in. I wonder how they got Walken to do the dancing.
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This video absolutely freaks me out, but what do you expect with Christopher Walken? I didn’t know the man even danced, but I recall that when a reader posted the video in the comments not long ago, they added that Walken was once a dancer. Indeed, Wikipedia notes that “Walken initially trained as a dancer at the Washington Dance Studio before moving on to dramatic stage roles and then film.”
And what a song to make the man move his bones! Yes, there are stunt doubles in there, but most of the hoofing is done by Walken himself.
I had forgotten who did that song, which really is a toe-tapper, so I looked it up, finding that it was done in 1974 by Redbone, the first Native American band to have a big hit (this song went to the top 4 on Billboard). Here’s a live performance of “Come and Get Your Love“, written by two of the band members, Pat and Lolly Vegas (Lolly is the lead singer, Pat on bass). Oddly, it starts with 45 seconds of an Indian dance. The lyrics are strange and enigmatic, but the tune and performance are great, which of course is why Walken danced to it.
Yep, Walken is a very accomplished dancer.
The Walken video is actually for a different song. Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice”. It won the 2002 Grammy for best video.
Here they have just overdubbed the original.
Yes, I stand corrected and have changed the post as well as posted the original below.
Thanks to all who set me straight.
And ruined a tremendous Walken performance with that overdubbing. The song doesn’t even go with the dance moves. Just awful.
I remember that I bought the Fatboy Slim clip on iTunes for $1.29 and it was a great purchase. Glad someone linked to it down in the comments.
Christopher Walken dancing? Here are snippets from all his dance scenes (wait for that last strange bit of dialogue at the very end): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERvKa51J8iw
The actual song Christopher Walken is dancing to is called “Weapon Of Choice” by Fatboy Slim, which was released in 2000. I highly recommend that video, over the one you posted, since it makes his dancing/timing even more impressive.
C’mon, Jerry, the original video is from Fatboy Slim. This is just someone who slapped on Come and Get Your Love (great song by the way) into the video. So fake news!
Okay, I didn’t know that. It’s not fake news (which is deliberate), it’s a MISTAKE.
Here’s the original video.
46M YouTube views.
Oh wow – it makes a clear difference- the head bobs in the beginning, the POW stance – awesome! I didn’t know it was Redbone…
Walken spent most most of the 1981 flick Pennies From Heaven hoofing it. Here’s a clip:
I always loved Bernadette Peters. As a kid, I liked that she wasn’t like all the other pretty women of Hollywood and she had that great curly hairdo!
Great pipes, too.
She has a look that often typecast her in early-20th-century period pieces, both in films and on Broadway.
One thing I noticed on the Wikipedia page is that both is parents lived a long time – his mom over 100 & his dad in his late nineties so perhaps we’ll get to enjoy CW for a long time into the future.
I once read or heard an interview in which Christopher Walken said that one of the highlights of his young career was when, after a stage show he (Walken) had done, FRED ASTAIRE came up to him and told him his dancing had been great. That’s pretty huge.
Walken also danced at least once on SNL. I remember him dancing to “Winter Wonderland” on that show. IIRC correctly, at the big finish at the end he sang (while dancing) “I’m walkin’… I’m Christopher Walken through a winter wonderland!”
The tune’s ok, but it needs more cowbell.
Someone should “deep-fake” Jack Nicholson’s 1975 face onto Walken in this – it’d be like another level of bizarre in The Shining… the idea alone is bizarre enough….
… and I see readers confirming my thought that there was an even older video with a more 90’s-ey sounding tune…
It astonished me that this video materialized, for its own sake or not for any movie. For kicks I guess…
Being familiar with “Weapon of Choice”, watching it with other music is sort of off-putting.
This is one of many Spike Jonze music videos that feature unexpected sorts of dancing.
I also recommend “Praise You”.
He also directed “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation”.
Both those latter films written by Charlie Kaufman, the most distinct and unique screenwriter working in American movies over the past two decades. Among other films he’s written are Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, New York, which he also directed (and which Spike Jonze produced).
We saw the new Kaufman film, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” last week.
It was baffling.
I heard Walken once say that even if he didn’t dance in a production he always tried to find something to do that would be an “homage to Broadway.” I’ve not seen all his films, but I always look for this when I do watch him in a movie (and often see something that looks right).
Also, you can’t see the Pennies from Heaven clip too often.
Maybe an odd bit of trivia, but Walken was on the boat with Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood when Wood drowned under what some say were questionable circumstances.
Whenever I hear that song, I get a sudden urge to watch Guardians of the Galaxy.
Oh yeah. I love that video. I loved it when it came out in 2001.