Drive-In Saturday

"Drive-In Saturday"
Single by David Bowie
from the album Aladdin Sane
B-side	"Round and Round"
Released	6 April 1973
Format	7" single
Recorded	RCA Studios, New York 9 December 1972
Genre	Glam rock art rock
Length	4:29
Label	RCA Records 2352
Writer(s)	David Bowie
Producer(s)	Ken Scott, David Bowie
David Bowie singles chronology
"The Jean Genie" (1972) "Drive-In Saturday" (1973) "Time" (1973)
Aladdin Sane track listing "Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)" (2) "Drive-In Saturday" (3) "Panic in Detroit" (4) Alternative cover

"Drive-In Saturday" is a song by David Bowie from his 1973 album Aladdin Sane. It was released as a single a week before the album and, like its predecessor "The Jean Genie", became a Top 3 UK hit.

Music and lyrics

Heavily influenced by 1950s doo-wop, "Drive-In Saturday" describes how the inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic world in the future (Bowie once said the year was 2033)^[1] have forgotten how to make love, and need to watch old porn films to see how it's done.^[2] The narrative has been cited as an example of Bowie's "futuristic nostalgia",^[3] where the story is told from the perspective of an inhabitant of the future looking back in time.

Its composition was inspired by strange lights amidst the barren landscape between Seattle, Washington, and Phoenix, Arizona, as seen from a train at night on Bowie's 1972 US tour.^[2] The music featured Bowie's synthesizer and saxophone, while the lyrics name-checked Mick Jagger ("When people stared in Jagger's eyes and scored"), the model Twiggy ("She'd sigh like Twig the wonder kid"), and Carl Jung ("Jung the foreman prayed at work"). The reference to Jung is significant according to artist Tanja Stark, and heralds the pivotal influence of Jungian depth psychology upon his career. She suggests the lyric "crashing out with sylvian" is a cryptic reference to the Sylvian fissure in the brain associated with visionary and hallucinatory experiences.^[4]

Recording and release

Bowie premiered the song live in November 1972—initially at either Pirate's World, Fort Lauderdale, Florida,^[2] or Celebrity Theatre, Phoenix^[3]—well before committing it to tape. He offered it for recording to Mott the Hoople but they turned it down, Bowie later saying that he didn't know why they refused it.^[5] However, in his 1972 tour narrative, Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Star, Mott leader Ian Hunter appears utterly perplexed by the song's pop complexity when Bowie plays it to him, writing that it has "a hell of a chord rundown". Bowie claimed on VH1's Storytellers that his frustration with Mott the Hoople's rejection of the song led to his shaving of his eyebrows during the Ziggy Stardust tour, an alteration that remained evident in photographs as late as 1974.

Bowie's studio version, recorded in New York on 9 December 1972,^[6] was released as a single in April 1973 and remained in the charts for 10 weeks, reaching No. 3 in the UK. The B-side, "Round and Round", was a cover of Chuck Berry's track "Around and Around", a leftover from the Ziggy Stardust sessions. Bowie encyclopedist Nicholas Pegg describes "Drive-In Saturday" as "arguably the finest track on Aladdin Sane", as well as "the great forgotten Bowie single", which he attributed to the fact that it was not issued on a greatest hits album until almost 20 years after its release.^[7] Biographer David Buckley has called "Drive-In Saturday" and "Rebel Rebel" Bowie's "finest glam-era singles".^[3]

Charts

Track listing

1. "Drive-In Saturday" (David Bowie) – 4:29 (the German version (RCA 74-16231) features an alternate 3:59 edit^[8])
2. "Round and Round" (Chuck Berry) – 2:39

Production credits

• Producers:
  • Ken Scott
  • David Bowie
• Musicians:
  • David Bowie: vocals, acoustic guitar
  • Mick Ronson: electric guitar
  • Trevor Bolder: bass guitar
  • Mick Woodmansey: drums
  • David Sanborn: tenor saxophone
  • Mike Garson: piano, synthesizers, Mellotron
  • G.A. MacCormack: backing vocals

Live versions

• A live audience recording from The Public Hall, Cleveland, Ohio, on 25 November 1972 was released on the bonus disc of the Aladdin Sane - 30th Anniversary Edition in 2003. Not included in that release was Bowie's introduction to the song, as follows:

• Bowie performed the song on Russell Harty Plus, a UK television show, on 17 January 1973. This performance is included on the DVD version of Best of Bowie.
• In addition to live performances in 1972-1974, the song was performed by Bowie on his 1999 tour and is included on VH1 Storytellers (David Bowie album).

Other releases

• It appears (in its album version) on several compilations:
  • Sound + Vision (1989)
  • The Singles Collection (1993)
  • The Best of David Bowie 1969/1974 (1997)
  • Best of Bowie (2002)
  • The Platinum Collection (2006)
  • Nothing Has Changed (2014)
• It was released as picture discs in both the RCA Life Time picture disc set and the Fashion Picture Disc Set.
• On Saturday 20 April 2013, a 40th Anniversary 7" picture disc of "Drive-in Saturday" will be available as an exclusive for the Record Store Day.^[9] "Drive-In Saturday" will be backed up with the "Russell Harty Plus Pop version" of the track.^[9]

Cover versions

• The Diamonds on the album Million Copy Hit Songs Made Famous By Elton John & David Bowie
• Joe Jackson on the album Live: New York Club Dates
• The Turn on the album Ashes To Ashes: A Tribute to David Bowie in 1998
• Def Leppard on the album Yeah!
• Morrissey covered the song in a 2000 concert in New York City at the Beacon Theater as the evening's encore^[10] and during his 2007 American tour. It was also released as a live B-side for his 2008 single "All You Need Is Me", and then on his B-side album Swords.

Notes

References

Pegg, Nicholas, The Complete David Bowie, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903111-14-5