“Something for the Weekend” by The Divine Comedy
The narrative of “Something for the Weekend” requires a bit of imaginative cutting and pasting to put into chronological order. But the language used is simple enough and the narrative, from a poetic standpoint, pretty straightforward.
There are two primary subjects at hand – a man and a woman. The male character, most simply put, is a playa. And apparently he is so confident in his standing as a womanizer that he never truly exercises the possibility that the female character, i.e. the lady he’s under the impression he’s on the verge of sleeping with, is already up on his game.
However, he may have expected that something was amidst when this lady tried to convince him “there is something in the woodshed”, because at first he seems reluctant to believe her. And even more importantly is that apparently at the same time she makes this request, he experiences an inner nagging “to come clean” to her, i.e. confessing that he’s a playa as opposed to the committed lover he’s pretending to be just to have sex.
Song’s Title (“Something for the Weekend”)
And theoretically, the title can be interpreted in one of two ways. One is as pointing to the idea that this was going to prove to be a memorable weekend in the life of the male character. But perhaps more reasonably put forth has been the notion that “something for the weekend” is actually a male-centric slang term, pointing to the idea of casual, noncommittal sex – you know, someone you’re just sleeping with for the weekend.
Considering that the name of this act is indeed The Divine Comedy, that explanation would make more sense given the ultimate irony of this situation.
And that’s because what proceeds to happen is that the female’s homeys are in fact waiting in the woodshed. And once dude goes down to examine the structure upon her request, he’s ambushed, as in she and her gang gag and bound and physically abuse him well, in the name of successfully stealing his dough.
Furthermore, all things considered this wouldn’t be a cautionary tale, like say BBD’s “Poison“. Instead this guy was someone who deserved it so to speak – someone whose own conscience or intuition was trying to tell him not to attempt to play this lady. But alas, he let his sex drive make the decision for him, being promised a free-willed bonking if only if he would check out the woodshed for this lady, who proves to be we may say even sheistier than he is. And at the end of the day, he does in fact pay the price.
The Divine Comedy and “Something for the Weekend”
The Divine Comedy is a band from Northern Ireland that has been doing their thing since the early 1990s. The band’s commercial peak was around the turn of the century, but in more recent times, i.e. the late 2010s, has come increased chart success.
Meanwhile this track is actually from their fourth album, “Casanova”. And as the lead single of that project, Setanta Records first released this song 17 June 1996.
“Something for the Weekend” also marks one of the more notable singles in The Divine Comedy’s catalog. This is because it managed to break the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart.
This song was written by The Divine Comedy frontman Neil Hannon. Interesting to note is that Neil is still holding down the brand as of the writing of this post. And he produced the track along with Darren Allison. Darren was one of the band’s regular collaborators during its early goings.
‘something for the weekend’ is a term for a cond-m
As a kid I remember gentlemen’s barbers having condoms on prominent display. The euphemism ‘something for the weekend’ was used many a time to enquire whether the customer required anyrhing other than a haircut.
In the 90s the phrase also aquired a secondary meaning and was used by drug dealers to refer to pills – usually Ecstasy – needed for when you went clubbing.
This is how “something for the weekend” is used in the title of the song by superfurryanimals about doing pills
Well it’s nice to know that the reviewer doesn’t understand the situation at all; even with the video to talk you through it. He is not a ‘playa’, whatever that is, he’s a mark and older than her and they know each other or there would be no mention of a wood shed or him ‘ending the conversation’ or the use of the word ‘darling’. It’s a very simple tale of caution told with an obviously-ironic twist.