Quaker in disguise?

“Personal pride does not end with noble blood. It leads people to a fond value of their persons, especially if they have any pretense to shape or beauty. Some are so taken with themselves it would seem that nothing else deserved their attention.” —William Penn

“Upside Down” was the lead single on Diana Ross’s 1980 disco record Diana. The song, written by Chic’s Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers, topped the charts for a month, and it’s one of the great late-era disco dance hits: catchy, unexpected, propulsive, feisty. 

The plot is simple. A boy is turning her upside down, inside out, round and round, et cetera. And then:

Instinctively you give to me
The love that I need
I cherish the moments with you
Respectfully I say to thee
I’m aware that you’re cheatin’
When no one makes me feel like you do

In the way of disco songs, it’s on the longer side, clocking in at a stately four minutes and five seconds. The outro goes on for a while, too, to facilitate easy DJ segues and uninterrupted boogieing.

Upside down you’re turning me
You’re giving love instinctively
Around and round you’re turning me
I say to thee respectfully

Upside down you’re turning me
You’re giving love instinctively
Around and round you’re turning me
I say to thee respectfully

I said a upside down you’re turning me
You’re giving love instinctively
Around and round you’re turning me
I say to thee respectfully

All those thees! This is an orgy of Quaker plain speech of the sort seldom heard outside a meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Certainly the popular airwaves hadn’t carried such formal, Quaker-style language since Pat Boone’s hit cover of the 1956 movie theme “Friendly Persuasion (Thee I Love).” Of course, that song is about a bunch of 1860s Friends, so its use of thee is readily defensible—Diana Ross’s testament to late twentieth-century girl power is, on the other hand, a strange match for the formality of the second-person singular. 

Is her speaker a Quaker, then? Is this a conscious, anachronistic nod to the values of simplicity and pacifism in a materialistic, violent world? Has Ross manifested a stoic, Christian self-respect in the face of her man’s cheating? All the turning, shaking, flipping, and direction-shifting may signal, somehow, agitation to the point that her language is addled. In any case, “Upside Down” is one of the more polite confrontations in the annals of popular music. And it’s strange, the centrality of motion in the song, given the traditional lack of dancing in early Quaker worship.

Still, I maintain there’s a connection—even if the video, I regret to say, is not helpful in resolving any questions of Quakerness. It’s just a bunch of shots of Diana Ross looking fabulous in different outfits.

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of The Paris Review, and the Daily’s correspondent.