Sarah Mary Chadwick — Drinkin’ on a Tuesday

As a concept, drinking on weeknights is aspirational to me, in the sense of sending yourself out there for it to be the main event of your day. In reality I have a job I care about and find myself increasingly ageing, so my priorities lie elsewhere. What I think Sarah Mary Chadwick is making a point of in her song “Drinking on a Tuesday”, is that it takes commitment, to preparing the right social attitude - “you gotta have a joke to tell” - to really earn a place among the dedicated. I’m just not that fun. 

I happened to listen to it over again in a hotel room in Germany with a gymnastics enthusiast. We’d been hiking in the mountains and talking about the moments of glory these athletes are forced to endure, through injury and exploitation, so it stuck out how Sarah Mary Chadwick draws on a metaphor of athletic dedication and commitment, to pull of a song as blurred around the edges of vaudeville as it is pointed. Although the jangly piano, and faintly reggae-like effect of “Drinking on a Tuesday” ring as a singalong, it might not work with any voice other than Sarah Mary Chadwick’s. A solo in the midst of a team effort.

This might be a song about preparing yourself for the endurance sport of self-destruction. If you wish to be seen clearly, listen to it while in a country where drinking is one of the happiest parts of their culture.

Messages to God is out September 15 via Kill Rock Stars.

Review by C. Billing.