When I was in elementary and middle school the weekend meant one thing: videogames. My mom had a rule in the house that my brother and I could only play video games on the weekends and Friday night was the glorious start of the time when we could lose ourselves in the 16-bit glory that was our Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Our game of choice was Street Fighter II, the original, and then the championship edition and then turbo and well, in retrospect they really did milk that franchise for all it was worth. Oh, but that was good times.
In high school, weekends started to become catch up time to do homework and to work on big projects. I spent a good amount of time during the week going to private music lessons and practicing my musical instruments so often homework got pushed to the weekend. I didn’t really party much on the weekends in high school. It was a time to hang out with friends a little but in general it was all about catching up on schoolwork.
Then there is college, in which the weekends start to mean some very different things. In fall quarter the weekends were all about marching band, whether it was a football game or a gathering of marching band friends. In the winter and spring quarter, weekends could start as early as Thursday depending on the your class schedule and because of the lack of restrictions on your time, you could treat pretty much any night of the week as a weekend. I mean when your earliest class is 11am, staying up until midnight to party really isn’t that unreasonable.
It wasn’t so much that it was a free for all when it came to partying. I had things to do, homework, rehearsals, and fraternity responsibilities to balance out life but my time was fluid and if I wanted to spend a Tuesday night not doing work I could shift my work to another night. Weekends no longer a special time in the week where you could do something specific they were just more time you had in the week.
Now that I’m officially an adult and in the work force, weekends are a time to do laundry, clean the house, run errands, and plan for the week. However, even though adulthood requires that I take care of stuff on the weekends, there is always some time, a couple hours in which I can truly relax, get my party on and enjoy life.
As much as I love my job, I would lying if I told you that I didn’t look forward to the weekends. Maybe it’s because the stage of life that my friends and I are in. We are in our mid to late 20s, working hard to establish ourselves, get ahead and we all work really hard during the week. Even though we don’t have kids we still struggle in our personal lives, with our identity as an adults and the transition into the “real world.” We all need a break sometimes and that’s why I thank God for the weekend.
Loverboy’s 1981 song “Working for the Weekend” is an anthem for anyone who's ever sat at work, looked at the clocked and wished for the sanctuary of the weekend (which in my experiences in pretty much everyone on the planet). The song explodes with guitars, bass and keyboards in a call and response phrase, first with a descending line answered by a lower rumbling which expresses a feeling of urgency. The drums create an infectious groove that melds the feelings of frustration with anticipation and excitement as the vocals enter.
The first verse comes gives some advice to a worker who feels that everyone is watching and judging him. It's the feeling of being new in a company and hoping that you are doing everything right. Then the realization comes in the end of the verse that everyone is in the same boat. As the song progresses there is a feeling that the work is not that bad. In the second verse, the singer reassures us that everyone is actually wants you to “come through.” This song not only comforts people letting them know that they can make it through the week and that they aren’t alone in their feelings.
The chorus is a joyous celebration, an anthem that not only encapsulates the motivation for many people in the working week but also how good the weekend feels when it actually comes. The melody is the chorus is a crafted between two different notes and the rhythm a slower then in the verses. These factors make the chorus not only catchy but also easy to learn and sing along with.
The instruments in the beginning work against each other. In the verses, the background is scaled down and then the when chorus hits all the instruments play together in a joyous chorus that mirrors the feeling of a group of people singing along to a rock anthem.
Sometimes music does not need to have multiple layers to hold meaning to people. The message in this song is clear. Everybody is working for the weekend and needs a break, everyone wants love, everyone is trying as hard as they can and everyone deserves a second chance. These are things that we all felt at some point in our lives which is which is why this song connects with us like it does..
One of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits features Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley audition to be Chippendale dancers and the song these two dancers audition to is “Working for the Weekend.” There are many things that are funny about this skit. Yes, the fact that Chris Farley clearly does not have the body type to be a male stripper and Patrick Swayze’s insistence along with the judge that Chris is a better dancer is both mystifying and hilarious. What gets me every time is how hard Chris Farley is dancing. He could not be committing any more to the skit. He is the perfect example of someone “Working for the Weekend” giving it his all. We watch, hoping beyond reason that he will get the job and in that moment, we become the narrator in “ Working for the Weekend.”
There may be people out there who make your work miserable, but never forget there are always people rooting you on. Don’t forget to reassure the people around you, because in doing so we remind ourselves that we are all together not only while working but also during the weekends.
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