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"Saturday Night" is a 1984 single from
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
n
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Cold Chisel Cold Chisel are an Australian pub rock band, which formed in Adelaide in 1973 by mainstay members Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums and Don Walker on piano and keyboards. They were soon joined by Jimmy Barnes (at the ...
, the second released from the album ''
Twentieth Century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 (1901, MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 (2000, MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu, Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and ...
'' and the first to be issued after the band's official break-up. The vocals are shared between
Ian Moss Ian Richard Moss (born 20 March 1955) is an Australian rock musician from Alice Springs. He is the founding mainstay guitarist and occasional singer of Cold Chisel. In that group's initial eleven year phase from 1973 to 1984, Moss was recorde ...
and
Jimmy Barnes James Dixon "Jimmy" Barnes (née Swan; born 28 April 1956) is a Scottish-born Australian rock singer. His career, both as a solo performer and as the lead vocalist with the rock band Cold Chisel, has made him one of the most popular and best-s ...
. It just missed out on becoming the band's third Top 10 single, stalling at number 11 on the Australian chart for two weeks, but it remains one of Cold Chisel's highest charting songs. At the 1984 Countdown Music Awards, the video was nominated for Best Video.


Details

The album track features ambient noise recorded in
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
's Kings Cross district, including the sound of motorbikes,
strip club A strip club is a venue where strippers provide adult entertainment, predominantly in the form of striptease or other Erotic dancing, erotic or exotic dances. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or Bar (establishment), bar style, and can also ...
spruikers and crowds of drunks, recorded by author Don Walker on a portable stereo. Also recorded are Walker's favourite busker and a snippet of
Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...
's "Rain". This version appears on later greatest hits album and is most frequently played on radio. The original single version omits the street sounds. Although Walker was unhappy with many of the songs from the ''Twentieth Century'' album, he later said he was particularly pleased with the production on "Saturday Night", which he was mostly responsible for. Don Walker has said of the song, "The band I'd been in for ten years was breaking up. I think it's just a 'kissing all that goodbye and moving on into the unknown' song." He later said, "The song is actually about walking away from a Saturday night. The song was pretty much built before the other guys cottoned on to what I was doing. I can remember Mark Opitz suddenly saying, 'I get this, this is really good.'" Early drafts of the song were titled, "Show Me A Light". Author Michael P. Jensen said, "These guys were supposed to be bogan heroes, but they slip a little French into their songs. 'L'esclavage D'amour' is 'the slavery of love'. The deep longing of the man walking his way around the city on the busiest night of the week is matched by his loneliness." "Saturday Night" spent 14 weeks in the national charts, peaking at number 11. The art work for the single was done by Chilean artist Eduardo Guelfenbein, who had also done the artwork for the album and a number of videos for the band. In 2007,
Grinspoon Grinspoon are an Australian Rock music, rock band from Lismore, New South Wales, formed in 1995 and fronted by Phil Jamieson on vocals and guitar with Pat Davern on guitar, Joe Hansen on bass guitar and Kristian Hopes on drums. Also in 1995, G ...
covered "Saturday Night" for the tribute album '' Standing on the Outside''.
Kylie Auldist Kylie Auldist is an Australian singer, best known as the singer of the Bamboos and Cookin' on 3 Burners. She has also released five solo albums. Career Auldist recorded her first song at the age of six. She is half Samoan. She moved from Brok ...
released a disco version in 2016.


Video

A
video clip Video clips refer to mostly short videos, most of the time called memes, which are short videos of silly jokes and funny clips, most of the time coming from movies or any entertainment videos such as YouTube. The term is also used more loosely to ...
for the track, directed by
Richard Lowenstein Richard Lowenstein (born 1 March 1959) is an Australian filmmaker. He has written, produced and directed: feature films, including '' Strikebound'' (1984), ''Dogs in Space'' (1986) and ''He Died with a Felafel in His Hand'' (2001); music videos ...
, was filmed in Kings Cross in February 1984, three months after the group disbanded. Part of the clip features Moss and Barnes mingling with the participants of the
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras or Sydney Mardi Gras is an event in Sydney, New South Wales attended by hundreds of thousands of people from around Australia and overseas. One of the largest such festivals in the world, Mardi Gras is the ...
. Lowenstein said the idea came from his friend Troy Davies. "At the time it wasn’t so accepted for straight guys to go there. I think Troy was worried how they’d deal with his extrovert gayness. It was brave at the time to have the gay Mardi Gras in a Cold Chisel video on Countdown. That was Troy, he was a mischief maker. But Cold Chisel lapped it up," Lowenstein said. Other sections of the clip showing the band members (minus Barnes) moving through the crowd of the Darlinghurst Road
red light district A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are partic ...
. Lowenstein said, "I had a camera on the back of a station wagon, we’d just drive up and down the Cross and film in slow motion. The song suited that kind of imagery so well, I thought it was a no-brainer to put the down and outs and all the characters in. It was a quick shoot, maybe two nights."


Reception

Reviewed in
Juke Magazine ''Juke Magazine'' was a weekly Australian rock and pop newspaper published in Melbourne that ran from 1975 to 1992. It was founded by Ed Nimmervoll (former editor of '' Go-Set'' magazine) who was the editor and one of its writers. ''Juke'' als ...
at the time of release, it was described as, "Another of those sparse, atmospheric songs. They haven't lost their edge over all these years, which is really sayin' something." Elsewhere, they called it, "an appealing track with many of Chisel's best qualities filtered through a clever mix. The melody relies heavily on Phil Small's excellent bass line". ''
The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'' also noted Small's bass, and, "The echoing drumbeat of Ray Arnott".
Marc Hunter Marc Alexander Hunter (7 September 195317 July 1998) was a New Zealand rock and pop singer, songwriter and record producer. He was the lead vocalist of Dragon (1973–11/1979, 8/1982–1989, 1995–11/1997), a band formed by his older brother, ...
, Paul Hewson and Robert Taylor reviewed the single for
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
, saying, "This shows why Chisel are a top band — they're prepared to take chances. Ian Moss sings superbly; the band plays with restraint but perfect taste... Has to be a hit."
The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
called the song a "pleasant ballad" but noted "hard-core fans may take to the b-side, "Painted Doll", more readily". Dodson also called it, "the most uncharacteristic Cold Chisel single ever. But it seems to have struck an immediate chord with Australian record-buyers".
The Monthly ''The Monthly'' is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer ...
said, "In many ways it represents the best of Cold Chisel. The music fades in slowly over the sound of voices and traffic, with an arrangement that borrows from soul (
Marvin Gaye Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo ar ...
comes to mind), but isn’t quite that. Moss, the more melodious of Cold Chisel’s vocalists, takes the lead, with Barnes chipping in for an explosive interlude. Electric guitar and saxophone are woven together in a twisting instrumental melody."


Charts


Footnotes

{{Cold Chisel Cold Chisel songs 1984 songs Songs written by Don Walker (musician) Macaronic songs