This year, I’ve challenged myself to write a review of every song that manages to get to No. 1 in the UK charts. Yes, I do realise that I’m running very behind schedule. Here’s the latest one:
Last time, we split up the current pop scene into three factions: the Deconstructionists (whose works are dedicated to deconstructing problematic elements of club music so as to create works which more accurately reflect modern material life), the Reconstructionists (whose work remodifies club music so as to remove its more problematic elements, thus allowing us to move beyond them) and the Traditionalists (whose work seeks to change nothing in the pop landscape and usually retains the problematic elements of pop music past). And now, having done that, we’re going to look at one of the most steadfastly traditionalist pieces released this year.
House Every Weekend is a song about a man who’s bored of spending every weekend in the house with his girlfriend, instead wishing to spend his time partying so as to gain a release from day-to-day life. In contrast to songs like Are You With Me which criticise the idea of using club music as a form of escapism, this song is entirely about how necessary to life that escape route is. It’s the exact opposite view, to the point where this song could be seen as a direct response to the very idea of Post Club music. “Yes, my life is hollow and difficult and scary,” the song goes; “why do you want to remind me of that?”
Indeed, this song is such a definitive throwback to the House music of yesteryear, it pretty much becomes a love letter to the entire genre. House is even in the title. The entire thing is basically a pun: the narrator doesn’t want to be in the “house every weekend” because he wants to “House every weekend”.
There are weird implications of the pun though. David Zowie never actually delivers the punchline in the song’s lyrics themselves, using the phrase “House Every Weekend” purely in relation to the main character being trapped in his house: the result being that the song is a tribute to the liberating properties of House music which only uses the word “House” in relation to something which is limiting, strict and dull. House Every Weekend almost manages to be Deconstructionist song entirely by accident.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be too much from David Zowie. His father was a fan of Bowie and named him after the superstar, originally planning on calling him “David Ziggy Zowie Aladdin Sane Thin White Duke Twig The Wonder Kid*”; the boy apparently comes from a long line of people who make ill-thought-out tributes.
* David Zowie might have just made this up for the sake of the interview. At least, I hope he did.
TheWrittenTevs 