Community Corner
Friday, Friday, Gotta Get Down on Friday
A 13-year-old girl rhapsodizes about the joys of the weekend. The reaction has been surprisingly mean-spirited, but here's one Dad who thinks it's sweet and innocent pop magic.
As a Dad to two teenage girls, I come to defend Rebecca Black.
She’s the California teenager whose video to her song “Friday” has racked up more than 82 million hits on YouTube, and counting. The song, which first gained attention when savaged on MTV’s Tosh.O, has about 200,000 “likes.” And 1.6 million “dislikes.”
Why the hatin’? It’s mostly about the lyrics. Although Black didn’t write them, it sounds like she did. She’s 13, remember, just barely a teenager.
7 a.m., waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal
Seein’ everything, the time is goin’
Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’
Gotta get down to the bus stop
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends
Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?
As you can see, these aren’t the type of lyrics that inspire deep soul-searching. That’s the point. It’s a teeny-bop tune that accurately describes a junior-high student's stream-of-consciousness. What does she see? People rushing. What does she eat? Cereal, of course, the great American breakfast. Rescued from the trauma of a school bus, she’s saved by her friends, one of whom we’re assuming is old enough to drive. She breaks into a smile and, God bless youth, her biggest decision is where to sit.
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend
As a montage explains when the video opens, she’s got a lot on her mind: studying, tests, homework, music lessons. So who doesn’t look forward to Friday and the weekend? This is where the lyrics make sense—it’s basically a teen version of Loverboy’s “Everybody's Workin' For the Weekend.” A teen version of the Beach Boys’ “Fun Fun Fun.” As a Dad, I know that the main audience of a 13-year-old girl’s song are going to be girls several years younger. For an 8-year-old, being 13 and singing about parties is pretty cool, pretty grown up. Probably why “Friday” is a Top 40 song on Billboard’s digital music chart.
Of course, “Friday” is an easy target for YouTube parodies (even Black has gotten into it) and some of them are hilarious. How would Bob Dylan tackle the song? There are “Friday” analyses popping up. It’s been noted that “Friday,” at least in its opening stanza, isn’t that much different from a section of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” (Woke up/Got out of bed/Dragged a comb across my head).
As a Dad, I tried to explain my affection for “Friday” to my own teenagers, age 19 and 16. It’s a great pop song. It speaks to its target audience, yada yada yada. They weren’t buying it. Dumbest song of the year, they agreed. Hmm, I expected that. The song is, indeed, pretty uncool for older teens. But for this Dad, who remembers listing to “Sugar Sugar,” “Yummy Yummy Yummy” and other bubblegum classics, and who always smiles while watching a video of my much younger girls dancing to “Barbie Girl,” I only have one thing to say.
Leave Rebecca alone!