Everybody Dance

According to Rodgers it was the first song written specifically for Chic, and it is usually played as the opening song of the band's live set. Norma Jean Wright sings lead, with Luther Vandross, Diva Gray, Robin Clark and David Lasley on backing vocals. Atlantic released it in April 1978 as the second single from the debut album. It reached number 38 on the Hot 100 and number 9 in Britain, where it spent nine weeks in the top 40. The seven-inch edit runs 3:30 with Est-Ce Que C'est Chic on the B-side. The twelve-inch was issued only as a promo at first.

Rodgers told the BBC Four documentary How to Make It in the Music Business that the session cost the band $10, spent on bribing the elevator engineer not to tell the manager they were recording in there. Pitchfork's Andy Beta tells it with the bribe slipped to the elevator operator, so the studio bosses would not know. In Sound On Sound, Rodgers said a jazz-musician friend played the Clavinet part but was not funky, so he played whole notes while Rodgers's rhythm guitar triggered the rhythm, a trick Clearmountain taught them. He called it one of the best songs they ever wrote, though not nearly as commercial as Le Freak.

Covers

The British group Evolution covered it in 1993 and reached number 19 in Britain and number 12 in Ireland. Steps sampled it for Stomp, and the Manic Street Preachers echoed it in (It's Not War) Just the End of Love. It appears in the films The Last Days of Disco and Summer of Sam.