When I was growing up in Cleveland the local radio station, WMMS-101 FM —“Home of the Buzzard” — had this whole musical “warm up to the weekend” routine every Friday afternoon that started with The Easybeats doing “Friday on My Mind” and worked it's way through a few other songs like Springsteen's “Born to Run” and culminated with to Ian Hunter’s hometown anthem: “Cleveland Rocks.” In the midst of all this was some lunatic named Murray Saul screaming his patented “Get Down” rant. In retrospect it was a long winded, semi-rhyming precursor to rap, extolling the virtues of going out and partying like crazy because it was the weekend, it was Cleveland, and we had all survived another week thanks to the power of rock n' roll.
'Ol Murray would huff and puff for about five minutes (or longer) and then always ended with the line: “That's why you've got to, got to, got to, got to (you get the idea) GET DOWN! DAMNIT!”
Anyway… I really loved The Easybeats' song — and all things British Invasion — so when my real hero at the time (1974 folks), David Bowie, released Pin-Ups; a whole LP of British Invasion covers including “Friday on My Mind,” I was in heaven. To this day, it is one of my all time favorite albums… So, here to kick off the weekend—whatever kind of weekend that may be— is David Bowie and his version of “Friday on My Mind.” (Please use the comments box to share your thoughts.)