10:15 Saturday Night

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"10:15 Saturday Night"
10 15 saturday night cover.jpeg
Cover of the French single
Single by the Cure
from the album Three Imaginary Boys
ReleasedJune 1979
Genre Pop-punk [1]
Length3:42
Label Fiction
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s) Chris Parry
Official audio
"10:15 Saturday Night" on YouTube

"10:15 Saturday Night" is a song by the English rock band the Cure. It was the B-side to their December 1978 single "Killing an Arab" as well as the opening track of their debut album Three Imaginary Boys . It was also released in France as a single, with the track "Accuracy" as the B-side. It has been performed live during most of their shows since its release, and was included on their 1984 album Concert: The Cure Live .

Contents

A promotional video, directed by Piers Bedford, was the band's first music video. [2] [a]

Background

According to interviews in the booklet for the Deluxe Edition of Three Imaginary Boys, the demo of the song is what caught Chris Parry's attention in 1978 and led him to sign the band to his newly founded record company, Fiction. The track was written by Robert Smith at the age of 16 one evening while sitting at the kitchen table feeling "utterly morose" watching the tap dripping and drinking his dad's homemade beer. It was first performed as part of sets performed by Easy Cure at gigs around the band's local area of Crawley.[ citation needed ]

Critical reception

In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Bill Janovitz compared the song's sound to the bands Gun Club, Wire, and Gang of Four, citing its "stark and edgy blasts of guitars, a country-blues drum beat, stark dynamics, and Robert Smith's vocal approach." He wrote that song's percussion mirrors the sound of a clock ticking, noting that its "music magnifies the narrator's dilemma from mere melancholy loneliness to a maddening desperation." [4]

"10:15 Saturday Night" is widely regarded as one of the Cure's best songs. In 2019, Billboard ranked the song number ten on their list of the 40 greatest Cure songs, [5] and in 2023, Mojo ranked the song number five on their list of the 30 greatest Cure songs. [6]

Samples and cover versions

The song was sampled by Massive Attack on their cover of "Man Next Door" from their 1998 album Mezzanine . [7] It was also covered by the Living End on their EP It's for Your Own Good . [8]

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Piers had directed a number of previous films and the following year would direct the video for Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Happy House". [3]

Citations

  1. ↑ Bradley, Larry (4 November 2014). "The 1970s: The Cure – "10.15 Saturday Night". The Alternative Jukebox. Cassell. p. 111. ISBN   978-1-84403-789-6.
  2. ↑ "The Cure | Boys Don't Cry". Post-Punk. 5 February 2016. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
  3. ↑ "Piers Bedford". Archived from the original on 29 July 2016.
  4. ↑ Janovitz, Bill. "10:15 Saturday Night - The Cure". AllMusic . Retrieved 18 August 2025.
  5. ↑ Unterberger, Andrew (29 March 2019). "The Cure's 40 Best Songs: Critic's Picks". Billboard . Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  6. ↑ "The Cure's 30 Greatest Songs Ranked". Mojo . 14 November 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  7. ↑ "Massive Attack @ the Hollywood Paladium". larecord.com . 6 September 2019. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  8. ↑ Lewis, Jonathan. "It's for Your Own Good – The Living End". AllMusic . Retrieved 20 December 2024.

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