Considered by some the
best popular song to come out of Australia, the Easybeats' 1966 hit Friday on my mind has been covered many times. It is a pop triumph.
Drawing on the sixties beat scene, it shows (middle) eastern and jazz
influences too. The guitars are great, as are the vocals. The use of
the minor key for the week days ("Monday morning feels so bad ...
Tuesday I feel better ... Wednesday just won't go, Thursday goes too
slow, I've got Friday on my mind") then the rising, quickening beat
for Friday ("Gonna have fun in the city, Be with my girl, she's so
pretty, She looks fine tonight, She is outta sight to me") works well. The lyrics are dire in
places ("Even my old man looks good ... Tonight I'll get mad, Tomorrow
I'll be glad, 'Cause I've got Friday on my mind") but work as a unit,
evoking youthful working class longings for the weekend very well. Of
course, the song ends with a fade because the weekly high can only
provide a cyclical thrill at best and is ultimately a dead end.
Something higher than "Thank God it's Friday" is needed. It is
epitomised in the contrasting Christian week, which has no weekend
but begins each Lord's Day with worship and thankfulness for the
resurrection, as the believer moves inexorably toward an eternal
Sabbath Day of joy.
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