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Marshall Jefferson was working nights at a Chicago post office when he gave house music its first true anthem — a distinction so obvious that he just named the song that. The song was made in 1985 when, high on inspiration, Jefferson dragged a few coworkers into his studio, banged out a track in six hours, and left convinced he’d made something special. His friends disagreed, and even fellow DJs gave him a polite shrug, but Jefferson pushed on.
To be fair, pianos had rarely, if ever, been featured in a house track at that time, but inspired by Elton John’s tickling of the ivories, Jefferson went all in on “Move Your Body,” sending riffs tumbling into a tough, sweaty groove with piano stabs and rapidfire percussion. Above it all, vocalist Curtis McClain issued a joyful command — “Gimme that house music to set me free! / Lost in house music! Is where I wanna be!” — that doubled as a notice of the genre’s arrival.
Where Jefferson’s friends saw doubt, DJ Ron Hardy saw potential and immediately played the song six times in a row during a set at The Music Box in Chicago, to rousing crowd approval. Local jocks got their hands on a copy, and by the time “The House Music Anthem (Move Your Body)” officially released on Trax Records (again, under dubious circumstances) in 1986, the craze had spread overseas, the dawn of Chicago’s house sound growing into a global movement.
Jefferson may have presciently given his own single the subtitle of “The House Music Anthem,” but the song has surely earned it. It hasn’t stayed frozen in time, either: Jefferson’s 2019 collaboration with Solardo brought it roaring back to festival stages, while the 2025 rework “Life Is Simple (Move Your Body)” with Maesic and Salomé Das introduced it to yet another generation.
Forty years on, the song still calls, and dance floors still enthusiastically answer. — K.R.
