Thursday 26 January 2023

Thank you for the days: Thursday

A new, seven-part series as a thiny veiled excuse to have something to write about: three songs that have a day of the week in the title. Not (just) in the lyrics but in the title. Today, part four, which can only mean ... Thursday.

I probably haven't featured They Might Be Giants on here enough over the years. Let's start making amends for that right now, with I Lost Thursday, from last year's album Book.

Let's go from there straight to another artist that I also haven't featured on NA enough over the years: the Pet Shop Boys. This track, titled simply Thursday, sounds like ... well, it sounds like it could have come from any era of their near-40 year career. And I don't mean that as a negative, but a positive - they've stayed true to their sound, and made the music they wanted to make. Not strictly my cup of tea, but you can't argue with their success. Plus there's something about a spoken-word Chris Lowe refrain.

There's only one song to close with today though, right? Seven years gone and as missed as ever, this is David Bowie with Thursday's Child, from 1999.

You know what this means for tomorrow, right?

8 comments:

  1. What you said about the Pet Shop Boys was spot on. A positive as you say.

    I used to really like Thursdays, as there was a vibe to them that meant the weekend was just round the corner and when I was a 20-something it meant a night out on the town. Now it feels as if the weeks are flying past far too quickly and I'm yet another week older - Argh... Slow down time, you move too fast.

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    1. When, in a seemingly other life, I worked for a behemoth mega-corporation, Thursday was the night all the contractor staff would go out on the lash. I was one of the few permanent staff who would join them. Good times...though they made for some difficult Friday mornings.

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    2. Ha ha - you too then. Yes I was attached to a very large organisation too and that was the night for pre-weekend high jinks. Goodness knows how I coped now but I was a few decades younger and shrugged off the hangovers. Changed days.

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    3. I hear you - a bad hangover these days can last... well, days!

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    4. Ah yes, I remember how an average week panned out at my first job in an office. Thursday night on the lash, shuffle paper around at work while recovering on Friday, then out again that evening. Lie-in on Saturday, then out once again in the evening. A couple of pints on Sunday lunchtime to finish the week off. Where did all that stamina go? I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

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    5. Indeed, Thursday-Friday-Saturday all out was not uncommon. More nights out in a week then than I manage in a month now.

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  2. Bowie's 'Hours' album passed me by a bit at the time, but sounds pretty majestic now. 'Thursday's Child' is great, though the video is somewhat creepy! Flicking through my hard-drives, Donovan's 'Jersey Thursday' crops up a couple of times, in his own twee folky original (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nut5bKtRrLA) and via a slightly psychedelic 1970 cover by Douglas Fir (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjO4Om0Pzfg). Also on a whimsical psych-pop tip, though from a couple of years earlier, 'To Claudia On Thursday' by The Millennium is quite groovy too! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQPfnGBbMas)

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    1. Ah, you've done better than me there. This was the day I struggled with most.

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