I hope you dance!

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
...and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance!



Sung by Ronan Keating
Written by Tia Sillers and Mark Sanders in September 1999.

The song was written during a particularly difficult time for Sillers, when she was in the midst of divorce proceedings.

"For ‘I Hope You Dance,’ I had written the opening line, 'I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,’" recalled Sillers. "I had just broken up with someone, going through a brutal divorce. I needed to get away, so I went to a beach on the Florida Gulf Coast. Sitting on the beach and reflecting about the break-up, I felt so small and inconsequential. But out of this difficult time came the inspiration to write ‘I Hope You Dance.’ As I was leaving the beach, I remember thinking that things weren’t really so bad, that I would get through it. That’s when I came up with the line, ‘I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean.’"
(From http://www.songwriteruniverse.com/sillers.htm)