Title Fight: "Saturday"

Illustration from the Hammond Times, a newsletter produced by the Hammond Organ Company for Hammond organ owners, Vol. 26, No. 6, February 1965

I know there are a lot of songs called "Saturday", but I'm getting tired of starting these Title Fights by acknowledging that there are other songs that have the same title (about 500 in this case). Yeah, yeah - Babyface, Built To Spill, the Carpenters blah blah blah. If you want to rep for one of those songs, leave a comment telling me so. All I know is that I'm really looking forward to the weekend - so let's talk about "Saturday".

I first listened to Everything Is Green, the debut album by the Essex Green, while sitting in my car on an I-5 onramp in Eugene, Oregon. The freeway was at a standstill, and I was on my way home from a record-buying trip with my brother and our respective special lady friends. I remember that I'd bought The Moon and Antarctica by Modest Mouse that day as well. I was immediately impressed with Everything Is Green because it was a pretty definitive primer on the different kinds of folk-pop popular in the '60s. From hilarious back-to-nature send-ups to apocalyptic hymns sung with faux menace, the record was carefully crafted with a sincerity and emphasis on simple melody that made it more than a novelty. One song that seemed like a total novelty at first is the Renaissance Faire jig called "Saturday". Featuring a sprightly guitar line and Sasha Bell's plainspoken vocals, the confusing lyric delivers some of the aforementioned faux menace before devolving into a flute-based jam with a tempo that speeds up to a nice crescendo and then dissolves into an ambient outro. I know the song's corny, but I've always liked it. "Put a ribbon in your hair to save yourself from harm!"

Sparklehorse's "Saturday" is a different sort of thing (it would be weirder if it wasn't - how many Ren-faire jigs does the world need?) It is found on the band's 1995 debut Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, from a bygone era when the home recordings of an eccentric from Bremo Bluff, VA, could get a release on Capitol Records. I'm a big fan of Mark Linkous and his surreal songwriting - it's good to see he's getting some buzz for his mysterious new project with Dangermouse, David Lynch, and members of the Shins, Strokes, and Flaming Lips. I'm not kidding about that, by the way - check the link. I always thought it strange that Sparklehorse's major label debut got away with being as downbeat and melancholy as it is - "Saturday" epitomizes this feeling. Guitar, organ, and drum machine provide the underpinnings for a song that makes little sense ("You are the car/You are a hospital" is the opening line) but communicates an aching and longing that is really just too much. I'm trying to look forward to my weekend, Sparklehorse, not schedule a date for slitting my wrists. I've got to give this one to the hippies.

Winner: THE ESSEX GREEN

"Saturday" by the Essex Green

"Saturday" by Sparklehorse