This song is one of the most amazing songs ever. It hits hard to the core of a man's (and possibly a woman's too) hollow feeling of the death of his individuality to marriage. Knowing too well that if he tried to keep his individuality it would never work out, so it never works out anyway because he becomes a shell of what he used to be. This song takes you through the highs of falling/thinking you have fallen in love and the lows of becoming engaged and married and unceremoneously losing your identity. As equivalent as your spouse saying you are starting your new life together, is the death of the life that you currently love. The key illustration in this is 'Saturday Night' as Saturday night is the night where your individuality and creativity and lust for life is/was at its peak. Your partners blind jealousy attacks your indivuality because they have no control over that. Before you know it, your individuality and 'Saturday night' are gone because you don't feel like putting up with the screaming/crying/jealousy/threats/etc. anymore. Now it just seems like a dream of your past. You are now a shell of a human, passionate about nothing. Dead inside. The key in the first stanza is that when he gave her the ring, that was the beginning of the end of his life of individuality and enjoyment of life. She seems to be wondering what is wrong with him, and why he is so despondent. He cannot tell her why he is despondent as he does not want to hurt her and open up that can of worms. But she is finally tired of his lingering depression over his life being over, that she is now out cheating on him. He is not wanting to do whatever it takes to get her back and possibly end up looking foolish, so he passes the time with his pride. Now when he talks about going round with circumstance that is basically just figuring out who/what to blame for the downfall, or if things may have been different here, or that decision was different there things would have worked out. All of that is moot.
The key to this song, one that has a designed abruptness to the lyric is when he says, "someone tell me how to tell the dancer from the dance". This is very very important. There are some women out there that want to get married so much they can taste it. The institution of marriage is the dance. Now, there are others out there that wait for the right one before marriage because they do not want to "settle". Who you marry is the dancer. The problem with the dancer scenario is that you will never find another that has the perfect balance with you. Just different levels of acceptability. Once time goes on, those levels of acceptability become smaller. Once your partner is outside of that level of acceptability separation occurs. I don't know how many times I have been in the situation in a relationship when I am trying to figure out if she wants to be married in the general sense of the term, or if she wants to marry me because she couldn't imagine being with someone else? If she wants to get married vs. marry me, then I can see separation right down the road quickly. If she wants to marry me, then that is a different story. If you marry the dance, it won't work out, if you marry the dancer it has a higher probability. But how can you tell which one you are doing before it is too late?
The fact that this song is on the 'Desperado' album says a lot. This song ties in very tightly with the song 'Desperado'. 'Desperado' saying you have to take care of business before it's too late and you end up in a life of misery; 'Saturday Night' saying that when you do that, you are just changing your avenue to a different form of misery. This song is a definite slap in the face by reality. All of this brought on by the jealousy of the woman not being secure enough to let her man have his 'Saturday Night'.
This song is one of the most amazing songs ever. It hits hard to the core of a man's (and possibly a woman's too) hollow feeling of the death of his individuality to marriage. Knowing too well that if he tried to keep his individuality it would never work out, so it never works out anyway because he becomes a shell of what he used to be. This song takes you through the highs of falling/thinking you have fallen in love and the lows of becoming engaged and married and unceremoneously losing your identity. As equivalent as your spouse saying you are starting your new life together, is the death of the life that you currently love. The key illustration in this is 'Saturday Night' as Saturday night is the night where your individuality and creativity and lust for life is/was at its peak. Your partners blind jealousy attacks your indivuality because they have no control over that. Before you know it, your individuality and 'Saturday night' are gone because you don't feel like putting up with the screaming/crying/jealousy/threats/etc. anymore. Now it just seems like a dream of your past. You are now a shell of a human, passionate about nothing. Dead inside. The key in the first stanza is that when he gave her the ring, that was the beginning of the end of his life of individuality and enjoyment of life. She seems to be wondering what is wrong with him, and why he is so despondent. He cannot tell her why he is despondent as he does not want to hurt her and open up that can of worms. But she is finally tired of his lingering depression over his life being over, that she is now out cheating on him. He is not wanting to do whatever it takes to get her back and possibly end up looking foolish, so he passes the time with his pride. Now when he talks about going round with circumstance that is basically just figuring out who/what to blame for the downfall, or if things may have been different here, or that decision was different there things would have worked out. All of that is moot.
The key to this song, one that has a designed abruptness to the lyric is when he says, "someone tell me how to tell the dancer from the dance". This is very very important. There are some women out there that want to get married so much they can taste it. The institution of marriage is the dance. Now, there are others out there that wait for the right one before marriage because they do not want to "settle". Who you marry is the dancer. The problem with the dancer scenario is that you will never find another that has the perfect balance with you. Just different levels of acceptability. Once time goes on, those levels of acceptability become smaller. Once your partner is outside of that level of acceptability separation occurs. I don't know how many times I have been in the situation in a relationship when I am trying to figure out if she wants to be married in the general sense of the term, or if she wants to marry me because she couldn't imagine being with someone else? If she wants to get married vs. marry me, then I can see separation right down the road quickly. If she wants to marry me, then that is a different story. If you marry the dance, it won't work out, if you marry the dancer it has a higher probability. But how can you tell which one you are doing before it is too late?
The fact that this song is on the 'Desperado' album says a lot. This song ties in very tightly with the song 'Desperado'. 'Desperado' saying you have to take care of business before it's too late and you end up in a life of misery; 'Saturday Night' saying that when you do that, you are just changing your avenue to a different form of misery. This song is a definite slap in the face by reality. All of this brought on by the jealousy of the woman not being secure enough to let her man have his 'Saturday Night'.