Key Points
- Tina Turner's Nutbush City Limits was released 50 years ago but remains well known to Australians.
- The line dance many associate with the song came about after its release and is understood to be uniquely Australian.
- The song that is often danced to in Australian schools is about Turner's hometown in the US state of Tennessee.
It’s a song about a “little old town in Tennessee”; yet to many Australians, it appears to have become something more.
The has had Australians dancing to her 1973 hit Nutbush City Limits in her honour. But she didn't create the moves and as far as anyone knows, she never gave the line dancing steps a go.
So how did a dance named after the 50-year-old song become so deeply ingrained in Australian culture, to the point where many of us ready our right leg when we hear the opening guitar rift?
The song
Nutbush City Limits was released by Ike and Tina Turner, the musical duo consisting of Turner and her then-husband Ike, who produced the track.
Turner wrote and sung the song about her hometown, Nutbush — a rural community, known as a cotton growing town, in the US state of Tennessee.
In videos of her performing the song, Turner moves energetically across the stage to the rhythm, a far cry from the moves Australians associate with it.
The dance
Some might argue the Nutbush is the most well-known dance in Australia.
It has somehow managed to permeate through generations, becoming recognisable by a huge cross section of people.
It is often a crowd-pleaser at weddings and gatherings, perhaps because its basic, repetitive steps in the style of line dancing make it accessible even to those who may otherwise be described as having 'two left feet'.
Its exact origins are not fully known, but the place where many Australians first learned the dance may provide a strong clue.
Who made up the Nutbush dance?
Jon Stratton, an adjunct professor at the University of South Australia's School of Creative Industries, has investigated where the dance, which many people learn in school, came from.
He found that the NSW education department — either someone within it or working closely with it — likely came up with the dance that has gone on to become a cultural phenomenon.
Professor Stratton explained that in the 1950s it started to be recognised that dance was a good way to teach children creative arts, improve motor skills, and encourage exercise.
By the 1970s, conversations about what songs and dances were appropriate for children to learn in schools were occuring, he said.
"In NSW there seemed to be some kind of committee trying to work out what kinds of dances primary school kids in particular should do as part of physical education," Professor Stratton said.
"What seems to have happened is that somebody devised the Nutbush along the lines of the Madison (another, slightly more complex line dance).
"Some people suggest that what actually happened was that somebody couldn't remember how the Madison went properly; so you end up with the Nutbush."
He said once children in NSW schools began doing the Nutbush at school, teachers from other states picked it up and introduced it into their classrooms.
It was no passing fad though. People from across Australia throughout the 80s and 90s and beyond tell stories of learning it at school.
Why was the Nutbush created for Nutbush City Limits?
Line dancing requires music with a repetative beat, so if the NSW education department wanted to formulate a dance for children it could have been done to a variety of songs. But in the case of the Nutbush, the dance is named for this specific song.
It was a well-known song in Australia — regularly played in dance clubs and in the top 100 for about a year. It would've been familiar in the 1970s when the dance was first introduced.
Professor Stratton said it made sense why Nutbush City Limits, a song which mentions southern foods, picnics and cotton separating machinery, would've been chosen as the music to accompany the dance.
Tina Turners songs were well known and popular in the 1970s and beyond. Source: Getty / Rob Verhorst/Redferns
"that is to say, it's not a track about love, it's not a track about sex; it's not a track about breakups or anything like that. So it doesn't have that personal quality to it."
He said the song's beat also made it easy for people to move in time to.
"It's kind of funky, but it has that dynamic rock beat over the top of the funk, which makes it really easy for people... to know where to put their feet," he said.
Embracing the Nutbush in outback Australia
Last year more than 4,000 people came together in outback Queensland to break the world record for the number of people dancing the Nutbush at the same time.
Organisers of the Birdsville Big Red Bash are hoping this year's nutbush world record attempt will again surpass their previous effort which saw more than 4000 people doing the dance together. Source: Getty / Marc Grimwade
"I'm expecting over 5,000 and I'm hoping for a lot more," Steve Donovan, the festival's operations manager, told SBS News.
He believes the song's 50th anniversary and the passing of Turner may get even more people involved in this year's attempt in July.
"I think in Australia there's just has a sense of wanting to become involved in something and we love our kind of traditions," he said. "And I think it's just become a classic Australian tradition."
Tina Turner and the Nutbush dance
Professor Stratton said he had not found any evidence of Turner ever doing the Nutbush but suggested she may have been made aware of the trend in recent years, as TikTok users had posted numerous videos of them doing the dance to Nutbush City Limits.
