David Bowie / Labyrinth (From the Original Soundtrack of the Jim Henson Film) / 1986
Magic Dance
manic, playful, slightly menacing beneath the fun
A propulsive novelty-funk number written for the film Labyrinth, in which a chant-like spell is cast to soothe a crying infant through dance and rhythm. Its call-and-response structure and nonsense-rhyme interjections turn a children's-story premise—goblins, magic, a baby in peril—into an infectious, almost ritualistic pop song.
childhood fear transformation through play ritual and incantation loss and helplessness the seductive danger of magic
Who's speaking
The narrator seems to be the Goblin King figure (as performed by Bowie in the film) addressing goblin followers and the baby itself, mixing seduction, command, and mock-tenderness; the voice is theatrical rather than personal or confessional.
What happens
The song opens with a taunting, riddling exchange about a mysterious babe with power, then shifts into a more plaintive verse about a baby crying and abandoned, its 'fun' or 'love' gone. This grief triggers a search for the right spell, offered as a menu of fairy-tale ingredients and weather omens, before erupting into the chant-like chorus that layers dancing and jumping as the ritual cure. The song essentially loops this cycle—distress, spell-casting, ecstatic release—escalating into a nearly instrumental, chant-only coda that abandons narrative for pure incantatory repetition.
How it's built
Built on a call-and-response verse (question-answer riddle), a plaintive pre-chorus in more conventional balladic couplets, a spoken/interrupted bridge of spell ingredients, and a highly repetitive chant chorus. The song has no bridge in the rock sense; instead it uses the 'what kind of magic spell' section as a recurring pivot point that resets the cycle. By the end, structure dissolves entirely into looped chorus repetition, mimicking a spell taking full hold.
Section by section
Opening riddle
“Power of voodoo (who do?)”
The teasing question-and-answer format immediately sets a playful, slightly sinister tone, framing the babe as a source of mysterious power that the singer/goblin figure wants to invoke or control.
First plaintive verse
The tone shifts abruptly from taunting to sorrowful, describing a baby left crying and blue after some unspecified loss, introducing an emotional stake beneath the whimsy—someone needs rescuing, and the singer feels helpless.
Spell-selection bridge
“slime and snails or puppy dog tails”
By quoting the classic nursery rhyme about the substances that make a boy, the song frames the crying baby's transformation as an almost ritual reassignment of identity, blending fairy tale logic with the film's baby-swap plot.
Chorus
The relentless instructions to dance and jump function as the spell itself; the internal rhyme and rhythmic insistence give it the feel of a magical formula being chanted into existence rather than a lyric being sung.
Closing chant coda
As the song winds down, narrative language falls away almost entirely, leaving only the chorus looping on itself—an enactment of the spell fully taking hold, with the listener swept into the same trance the lyrics describe.
Craft
- call and response
- The riddling question-answer format in the opening and spell sections mimics children's playground chants and nursery rhyme logic, reinforcing the fairy-tale, spoken-aloud quality of the song.
- nursery rhyme allusion
- The reference to slime, snails, and puppy dog tails draws directly on the traditional rhyme about what boys are made of, embedding the song in a lineage of children's folklore about transformation and identity.
- repetition/incantation
- The chorus's insistent repetition of 'dance' and 'jump' functions less as lyric than as literal magical formula, enacting the spell it describes rather than just narrating it.
- personification of magic
- Magic is treated as an active force to be wielded and 'put on' someone, collapsing the distance between emotional comfort and literal sorcery.
Reading it
On its surface, the song is functional movie music: a spell cast by goblins to placate a baby, matching Labyrinth's plot about a kidnapped infant and the trials of its sister. But the lyric's emotional core—an infant abandoned, crying, and only saved through frantic, joyful ritual—also reads as a miniature allegory for how play and imagination console distress, a theme fitting a film about a girl navigating fear through fantasy. A more mischievous reading treats the 'spell' vocabulary and nursery-rhyme ingredients as satirizing the arbitrary nonsense of childhood magic itself, poking fun at how children (and grown performers) invent meaning out of rhythmic nonsense.
Context
Written for the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, where Bowie played Jareth, the Goblin King, and performed several songs including this one during scenes with goblin puppets. The song accompanies a scene in which goblins comfort a crying baby through dance, matching the film's plot about a baby stolen into a magical realm. It is one of Bowie's more overtly theatrical and comic compositions, distinct from his rock or art-pop work of the era.
Listen for
- The call-and-response rhythm mimicking a children's chant
- The tonal whiplash between the mournful verses and the manic chorus
- The nursery-rhyme quote about slime, snails, and puppy dog tails
- The way the song's structure breaks down into pure repetition by the end, mirroring the 'spell' taking effect
About David Bowie
David Robert Jones, known as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as among the most influential musicians of the 20th century, he was known for his frequent reinvention and visual presentation, and is often referred to as the "chameleon of rock".
1947 - 2016 / England
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