The Story Behind Loverboy's 'Working for the Weekend'
What came first the lyric or the catchphrase?
It's part of everyday vernacular now: "What are you up to?" "Working for the weekend."
Originally found on Loverboy's 1981 album Get Lucky, "Working for the Weekend" (the song) has found its way into the pop culture consciousness, making appearances in everything from a Saturday Night Live skit and a 30 Rock episode, to a scene in Zoolander and a Regular Show clip.
With "Working for the Weekend" being over 30 years old now, Noisecreep wondered where the phrase came from? Did the band invent it or was it existing slang? There's even a page on wiseGEEK asking what it means, but it makes no reference to its origin.
So Noisecreep asked Loverboy frontman Mike Reno, who wrote the song that originally reached No. 2 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart in 1982, about its origins.
"That's the first time I've ever been asked that question, which is cool," says Reno. "You know what happened is Paul [Dean, guitarist] had written most of the song and I was coming in to finish it up and turn it into a Loverboy song.
"Paul sometimes starts a song and sometimes I start a song. In that case, he had the chorus. He had this line: 'cause everybody's just waiting for the weekend.' And I started playing around with it and as soon as it came up and the band started going [bah dah], I went [sings], "'cause everybody's working for the weekend.'
"And he just stopped everything and went, 'Oh, wow, that's so much better.' He said, 'That's it. That's the title.' So that's how that happened."
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