Music Friday: February's Birthstone Makes Curious Appearance in Wang Chung's 'Dance Hall Days'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you fun songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. In 1984, British band Wang Chung helped define a generation with its international hit “Dance Hall Days.” The song put a New Wave timestamp on a slew of popular movies and is memorable for lead singer/composer Jack Hues' "hallucinogenic" reference to amethyst in the final verse.

The purple gem is, of course, the official birthstone for February.

Hues sings: “So take your baby by the wrist, and in her mouth an amethyst. And in her eyes two sapphires blue, and you need her and she needs you.”

During an interview with “Just My Show” podcast host Eric Greenberg, Hues explained that the song about finding love in an old-fashioned dance hall begins innocently with the line, “Take your baby by the hand.” But, by the last verse, the tone has escalated to “Take your baby by the wrist, and in her mouth an amethyst.”

“It’s all a bit more hallucinogenic in a way, how things that start off simple get complex,” he said.

“Dance Hall Days,” which charted in 12 countries and peaked in the U.S. at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, was featured in a slew of popular movies, including Bachelor Party, Pretty in Pink, Gotti, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, To Live And Die In LA, Adventureland, The Informers and The Fighter.

Founded in 1980 by Nick Feldman, Jack Hues and Darren Costin, Wang Chung's unusual name translates to “yellow bell” in Mandarin Chinese. Wang Chung is also the first note in the Chinese classical music scale.

The band scored five Top-40 hits from 1983 through 1987, including "Let's Go!" and "Everybody Have Fun Tonight." The band actively toured from 1980 to 1990, and then again from 1997 to the present.

Don’t miss Wang Chung's performance of “Dance Hall Days” at the end of this post. The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along.

“Dance Hall Days”
Written by Jack Hues. Performed by Wang Chung.

Take your baby by the hand
And make her do a high hand stand
And take your baby by the heel
And do the next thing that you feel

We were so in phase
In our dance hall days
We were cool on craze
When I, you, and everyone we knew
Could believe, do, and share in what was true
I said

Dance hall days, love

Take your baby by the hair
And pull her close and there, there, there
And take your baby by the ears
And play upon her darkest fears

We were so in phase
In our dance hall days
We were cool on craze
When I, you, and everyone we knew
Could believe, do, and share in what was true
I said

Dance hall days, love
Dance hall days
Dance hall days, love

Take your baby by the wrist
And in her mouth, an amethyst
And in her eyes, two sapphires blue
And you need her and she needs you
And you need her and she needs you
And you need her and she needs you
And you need her and she needs you
And you need her
And she needs you

We were so in phase
In our dance hall days
We were cool on craze
When I, you, and everyone we knew
Could believe, do, and share in what was true
I said

Dance hall days, love

Dance hall days, love
Dance hall days

Dance hall days, love
Dance hall days

Dance hall days, love
Dance hall days

Dance hall days, love

Credit: Screen capture via YouTube.com.

Ice Ice Baby! Frosty Gem Is the 54th 200+ Carat Diamond Discovered at Karowe Mine

Ice ice baby! No, we're not referring to the 1990 song or the mammoth Arctic blast that's breaking wind-chill records from the Dakotas to Long Island. What's got our attention is this 240-carat frosty white gem-quality diamond that was just unearthed at the red-hot Karowe mine in Botswana, where the mercury topped out at 91 degrees yesterday.

Yes, Lucara's diamond mine in the tiny landlocked country in Southern Africa is arguably the world's most prolific. The recent recovery was the mine's 54th diamond in excess of 200 carats.

The mine that brought you the 1,109-carat Lesedi la Rona and the 813-carat Constellation, has yielded a dozen diamonds exceeding 300 carats.

Impressively, 180 diamonds from the mine have sold for $1 million or more and 10 diamonds yielded $10 million or more.

Lucara CEO Eira Thomas said 2018 was a banner year and that mining operations in 2019 will be largely focused on Karowe's higher-value lobes, the ones from which Lesedi la Rona and the Constellation were extracted.

“As Karowe enters its seventh full year of production, the regular recovery of specials (diamonds larger than 10.8 carats) continued unabated and in line with expectations,” she said. Lucara expects to extract 300,000 to 330,000 carats in 2019.

The mine has been so successful that Lucara Diamond Corp. is looking at ways to extend its lifespan.

The mine currently boasts open pit reserves of 2.6 million carats extending out to 2026 and is in the process of completing a feasibility study that could expand mining underground to 2036 and beyond, according to Thomas.

Credits: Images courtesy of Lucara Diamond Corp.

Wow! GIA Gemologist Finds Fossilized Insect Trapped Within Indonesian Opal

On a trip to Indonesia last year, GIA Graduate Gemologist Brian Berger purchased an unusually striking opal originating from the island of Java. Boasting an exciting “play of color” throughout the stone ranging from pale yellow to dark blue, the gemstone was remarkable on its own. But now it has become a potentially significant scientific discovery. Fully encased within the gemstone is an insect. While insects trapped in amber are a more common find, it is almost unheard of in a slow-forming gemstone like opal.

“You can see what appears to be a complete insect encased beautifully inside,” Berger noted in a blog post for Entomology Today. “The insect appears to have an open mouth and to be very well preserved, with even fibrous structures extending from the appendages."

Berger told Gizmodo: "Some researchers weren’t sure it was possible. Now we know it’s possible. Is it likely? Extremely unlikely.”

According to Ryan F. Mandelbaum at Gizmodo, most scientists believed that high-quality fossil specimens were unique to amber.

“It’s possible the bug was trapped in amber that then underwent a process known as opalization," he wrote. "Much like fossilization turns bone into stone, opalization can render organic specimens into opal’s hapless prisoners.”

Entomologist Ryan McKellar, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada, told Gizmodo, “It is a pretty neat find, and a bit puzzling.”

Amber is cherished for its contributions to fossil records. Researchers have recovered extraordinary amber fossils featuring spiders, wasps, ants, and even a lizard. According to Vasika Udurawane at Earth Archives, petrified tree resin starts out as a viscous liquid, slowly hardening... and preserving the entrapped remains of creatures that find themselves caught up in the process.

Berger’s find supports the theory that opal can also preserve ancient remains. It has been reported, for instance, that paleontologists in Australia have found an opalized dinosaur fossil.

Michelle Starr of Science Alert noted that researchers still have a limited understanding of opal formation. The dominant theory states that silica-laden water fills cracks and cavities in its path. When it evaporates, it leaves behind silica deposits, starting the slow opal forming process. Starr notes that opalization needs a hollow cavity. Amber does not fit these parameters, leaving scientists wondering how this opal, if it did start out as amber, came to be.

Berger intends to work with an entomologist or paleontologist who can study the opal and its insect inclusion. He had submitted the stone to the Gemological Institute of America, which subsequently issued a report authenticating the specimen as an “unaltered, untampered precious opal, with a genuine insect inclusion.”

"If the process of formation is correct, from tree sap with an insect through a sedimentary process, to copal (resin), to amber, to opal, it could mean the insect has the possibility to be one of the oldest ever discovered,” Berger said.

He plans to donate the specimen to a museum after the analysis.

Credits: Images courtesy of Brian Berger, @velvetboxsociety.