Where does ‘The Slosh’ come from? Why is the dance so popular in Glasgow and across Scotland?

Everyone in the West of Scotland seems to be born with the innate ability to dance The Slosh - but where did it come from? And why is it so popular?

The Slosh is a popular ‘line-dance’ that’s been a staple of Scottish dance halls for the last 50 years. You’d be forgiven for thinking the dance had ceilidh origins - but that’s not the case - it’s not usually danced to traditional Scottish music.

In fact, the most common song people dance The Slosh to is Beautiful Sunday by Daniel Boone. It’s not even a modern Scottish song - it was a one-hit wonder by an English pop artist released in 1972.

Funnily enough, Beautiful Sunday enjoyed massive cult success in Scotland - but perhaps was even more popular in its time in Japan. It got a tie-in with a Japanese news programme in 1976, which resulted in sales of almost two million in the Asian country - it was the biggest selling single by a foreign artist in Japan up until 2006.

The song is a favourite of football fans across Scotland - including Glasgow Celtic, who played Beautiful Sunday over the Parkhead tannoy after a 1-0 win over Rangers in September 2018. It was already a popular favourite for fans - as it was often sung by the Green Brigade.

Nowadays you’ll most commonly find folk dancing The Slosh at Scottish weddings - although any rendition of Beautiful Sunday is bound to get someone dancing - whether it be from the hi-fi in the Barrowlands Ballroom or from a busker on Buchanan Street.

But where did The Slosh come from? According to an article published on April 29 1972, former British weekly music magazine, ‘Melody maker’, the Slosh originated in Wigan. Still even at the time, no one knows who came up with the dance.

Music journalist Chris Welch wrote for Melody Maker:”It seemed like the most complicated dance craze since the Tarantella…

“Guaranteed to cause mass falling to the floor, The Slosh has arrived. It came to London at the Cafe de Paris last week. And the city of its origin, Wigan, proclaimed it a proud day for the North.”

According to the article - which was released when The Slosh was a brand new dance debuting in dance halls London, coming down from the north of England - the Slosh was the next big thing after The Funky Chicken, The Penguin, and the Foxtrot.

Tony Carr, a Blackpool-based composer told Melody Maker - which would later merge with NME in the early 2000’s - about The Slosh, he said:”Nobody quite knows where the dance started but the kids were doing it…”

Welch continued:”Why is it called The Slosh? Nobody seemed to know, although one suggestion was that several pints of strong ale drunk just prior to commencing the basic steps would enhance the experience.

“While I still can’t believe the boys and girls of Wigan spontaneously worked out this some-what formal method of energising the knee joints, it has a certain British charm, far removed from the coarse vulgarities and loose sexual innendos of the frug and boogaloo.”

Well there you have it - we may never know who came up with The Slosh - but at least we know where it came from - and that it’s a much more wholesome dance than the frug or boogaloo.