Songfacts®:

• This is certainly the most famous song about a hungry hobo who has to dance for his dinner. He insists he can't dance, but the hosts have a hard-and-fast rule: before you can eat, you gotta dance like Fred Astaire.
  
  It has a happy ending: Sayer gives it a go and learns that he can dance after all. He even goes back for seconds.
• Sayer wrote this song with David Courtney. In 1973, the pair teamed up to write most of the songs on The Who frontman Roger Daltrey's debut solo album, Daltrey. That same year, they made Sayer's first solo album, which contained "The Show Must Go On," a hit just about everywhere but America. The Just A Boy album followed in 1974 with the first single, "One Man Band," the first Sayer song to get much attention in America. "Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance)" was his next single, and a breakthrough hit.
  
  Sayer split with Courtney soon after, and in 1977 landed two #1 hits in America: "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" and "When I Need You."