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Saturday's Kids Lyrics
Saturdays boys live life with insults,
Drink lots of beer and wait for half time results,
Afternoon tea in the light-a-bite, chat up the girls, they
Dig it!
Saturdays girls work in tescos and woolworths,
Wear cheap perfume cause its all they can afford,
Go to discos they drink baby cham talk to jan, in bingo
Accents.
Saturdays kids play one arm bandits,
They never win but that's not the point is it,
Dip in silver paper when their pints go flat,
How about that, far out!
Their mums and dads smoke capstan non filters,
Wallpaper lives cause they all die of cancer,
What goes on, what goes wrong.
Save up their money for a holiday,
To selsey bill or bracklesham bay,
Think about the future, when they'll settle down,
Marry the girl next door, with one on the way.
These are the real creatures that time has forgot,
Not given a thought, its the system,
Hate the system, what's the system?
Saturdays kids live in council houses,
Wear v-necked shirts and baggy trousers,
Drive cortinas fur trimmed dash boards,
Stains on the seats - in the back of course!
Drink lots of beer and wait for half time results,
Afternoon tea in the light-a-bite, chat up the girls, they
Dig it!
Saturdays girls work in tescos and woolworths,
Wear cheap perfume cause its all they can afford,
Go to discos they drink baby cham talk to jan, in bingo
Accents.
Saturdays kids play one arm bandits,
They never win but that's not the point is it,
Dip in silver paper when their pints go flat,
How about that, far out!
Wallpaper lives cause they all die of cancer,
What goes on, what goes wrong.
To selsey bill or bracklesham bay,
Think about the future, when they'll settle down,
Marry the girl next door, with one on the way.
Not given a thought, its the system,
Hate the system, what's the system?
Wear v-necked shirts and baggy trousers,
Drive cortinas fur trimmed dash boards,
Stains on the seats - in the back of course!
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"Saturday's Kids" -- the song title is possibly a reference to the nursery rhyme, "Monday's Child" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday%27s_Child), which describes the characteristics that children are supposed to have based on the day of the week on which they are born. Weller, the author of the song, would very likely have been familiar with this rhyme.
In place of the rather optimistic qualities given in the rhyme, "Saturday's Kids" paints a bleak picture of lower-class life in Britain. Saturday's kids are working-class or lower-class children -- the song is a long list of characteristics that a British listener would instantly recognize as identifying working-class people.
It's also possible that it's a reference to "The Saturday Kids", a song by Mott the Hoople that Weller might also have known.
"live life with insults" -- the song doesn't make it clear if the boys receive or issue insults, but the answer is probably both, or that their life itself is one long insult.
"wait for half-time results" -- the 'half-time results' are the scores from a football (soccer) match at 'half-time', the break in the middle of the game. At the time that the song was written, results from soccer matches, particular in the minor leagues, wouldn't usually be available live. Instead, radio sports programs would give a round-up of the scores from each match at half-time, and then again at full-time, when the matches ended. The boys in the song are waiting for the half-time results to see how their team has done.
"Light-a-bite" -- a 'bite' is slang for a meal, so "Light-a-Bite" (or "Lighter Bite") is apparently the name for a cafe, either a specific one or part of a chain.
"Tesco's and Woolworths" -- Tesco's is a supermarket chain; Woolworth's is a department store chain. The choice of those two chains, which cater mostly to lower-class or lower-middle-class Britons, is deliberate. The fact that the girls have jobs in those particular stores defines them as working class.
"go to discos" -- a Friday or Saturday night outing to the disco is another activity strongly associated with the particular class Weller has in mind.
"drink Babycham" -- Babycham is the brand-name of a light alcoholic drink, a sparkling perry made from pears. The 'cham' part of the name is supposed to imply 'champagne'. Again, this choice of drink firmly identifies the drinkers as working-class; Babycham was a stereotypical choice for girls from the class Weller is describing, probably because it was inexpensive and relatively low in alcohol. Boys would drink beer instead.
"Bingo accents" -- Bingo was a popular pastime among working-class Britons; so a 'Bingo accent' would by implication be a working-class accent or dialect.
"one-arm bandits" -- slot gambling machines, sometimes called "fruit machines"
"Capstan non-filters" -- unfiltered cigarettes of the Capstan brand. Again, this brand and the choice of unfiltered cigarettes is a very strong indicator for a specific social class.
"To Selsey Bill or Bracklesham Bay" -- two seaside destinations in Sussex, in southern England. The fact that the subjects of the song vacation in England rather than traveling abroad is another class indicator. Selsey Bill had a large caravan (US: trailer) park; going to the seaside and staying in a caravan near the beach was a firmly working-class style of vacation.
"one on the way" -- a woman with 'one on the way' is pregnant; the implication is of a hasty or forced marriage because the female partner is already pregnant
"council houses" -- social housing built by the local Council (US: projects)
"v-necked shirts and baggy trousers" -- the uniform of a particular social class at the time that the song was written
"drive Cortinas" -- the Ford Cortina was nearly ubiquitous in the UK at the time that the song was written; again, it was not a prestigious choice of car.
"fur-trimmed dashboards" -- particular kinds of vehicle accessorization such as fur trim, fuzzy dice dangling from the mirror etc. were also strong class indicators
"stains on the seats -- in the back of course" -- probably the result of sexual intercourse. It's yet another class indicator; middle-class young people can find more comfortable places to have sex, while working-class boys or girls can only find privacy in the back seat of their cars or their parents' cars.