Right out on a limb with this one (probably the right place to be)
The Saturday Boy is a song by Billy Bragg, released in 1984 on an album called Brewing Up. If you want to hear the song in full there is a link here.
Most of you wont like it, some of you will hate it and one or two of you will smile. I guess it’s not so much the content for everybody else it’s the concept. For me it’s about ways of dealing with rough days at work (nothing terrible, just the usual stresses that come with spinning too many plates). The other night I came home after what felt like a sh@£$y day (sh&*^y days are always relative) and after I had done the usual domestic madness of helping with dishes, reading stories and putting people to bed I did the same routine of taking the dog out around 9pm with my headphones on. No book that night because the day hadn’t been great but scrolling down the songs in my iPhone I got to the Saturday boy. As I listened to that song I was catapulted back to 1985 or 1986 to the Maths class with Brian Doherty talking about Billy Bragg to the development of the working class ethical mentality of trying to save the world and equality for everyone with the fear and excitement of being 13 years old.
To a childhood lost.
During that walk past the pond, they had just cut the grass and I could smell it, it was great. The sunset was the most staggering I can remember on a dog walk for a long-time, pure pastel. The sharpness of Billy Bragg’s electric guitar with the stand-alone speaker was almost physical and the trumpet solo… wow the trumpet solo; that is a belter.
I got home after that shitty day from that walk with the Saturday Boy ready to make it right again, ready to start again, recharged.
The point isn’t the Saturday Boy; the point is what is your Saturday Boy? If you don’t have a Saturday Boy I would suggest you find one, only for the fact that if I didn’t have one I would go completely mad.
Punch line… if you can be arsed listening to the lyrics the real point is that I am the Saturday Boy and that is how I see myself. For those of you who know anything about it, as a final punch line, yet again I had to look up the work ‘unrequited’.
As a final p.p.s here is another link here to Billy Bragg, live in New York, singing the Saturday Boy.
Blog Post Number: 940
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