79: Herman Brood and His Wild Romance, "Saturdaynight"

By Wm. on September 14, 2024

To be perfectly honest, I don't know much about the Dutch musician and artist Herman Brood. His band's one American Top 40 hit lasted only three weeks on the show, though that was long enough to make a favorable impression on 15-year-old me as autumn thought about creeping in 45 years ago. It's highly likely I learned (and then promptly forgot) from a listener question on the 9/15/79 countdown that Brood's hit was tying a record for most different songs with the same title to make the Top 40: "Saturday Night" was in its fourth incarnation, matching "You" and "Call Me." (A couple of notes are in order before proceeding: 1) Yes, the label for the U.S. release of the Brood single gives the title as a single word, as indicated in the title of this post--I have no idea if that was an intentional stylizing or a typo, as it was presented as two words in Europe. And of course, Earth, Wind & Fire's late '76 hit had the second word spelled as "Nite." 2) Blondie made sure this tie lasted only six months.)

Even if there was appreciation, I didn't think too much about Brood or his #35 tune over the next quarter century-plus, not until I began an obsessive quest to acquire a decade's worth of Top 40 hits (June '76-May '86) in CD or MP3 form. "Saturday Night" wasn't available on iTunes; eventually, in 2010 (according to Amazon), I broke down and purchased My Way: The Hits, a 24-track career retrospective released shortly after Brood's suicide in the summer of 2001 at the age of 54. When I speculated in 2018 about which songs I might feature in future Fall '79 PastBlast posts, "Saturday Night" was the one I pegged for 9/15. Last weekend, that show came up as the alternative for rebroadcast, so here we are.

Over the past week I've listened to My Way a couple of times and tried to learn a little about Brood, the latter mostly through Wikipedia, of course. Whoever curated the CD did a fine job, as I've discovered several songs beyond the U.S. hit that I'll enjoy circling back to occasionally. In addition to singing, Brood played keyboards; however, it's guitarist/co-writer Dany Lademacher who provides much of the band's punch. The earlier songs tend to rock out quite a bit--"Love You Like I Love Myself" and "Never Be Clever," for example--and make me think I'd have fun exploring the Dutch rock scene of yesteryear (point in favor of the hypothesis is Bettie Serveert's Palomine, much of which I absolutely adore; point against is I'm coming close to my lifetime limit of "Radar Love"). Brood's voice is hardly pretty, but he was plenty gifted as a tunesmith--check out later cuts such as the late 80s pop fluff of "Sleepin' Bird" and 2000's alternative-ish "Dance On." There's a strong case to be made that Brood's theme song appeared on the same album as "Saturday Night:" "Rock 'n' Roll Junkie" may have been intended to describe his dedication to the art form but instead came to signify his dedication to abusing substances, including heroin. His decision to jump from the top of an Amsterdam hotel seemed to stem from the realization that he would never control his addictions. One suspects Brood recorded his spare version of "My Way" with the understanding that his end was indeed near, a proclamation that he'd done all he could do. It climbed to the top of the Dutch charts within six weeks of his death, his first #1.

I've only realized this week that the song I heard those first three weekends of September 1979 was a re-recording for the U.S. market (which makes me think the one-word title was in fact intentional). There are different lyrics, and the vocals are more distinct, the production brighter. Perhaps that paid off--it's possible the original recording wouldn't have climbed high enough to be spun by Casey. You get both takes below for comparison; I've come to prefer the European version, which is embedded first.

At that moment Brood and I had totally different takes on the meaning of "I just can't wait for Saturday night." He would have been ready to party; I would have been ready to write down another chart.