Saturday Night, Sunday Morning

“I wanted to create a record which was still very much me, with all the influences that I enjoy,” Jake Bugg tells Apple Music of his fifth album, *Saturday Night, Sunday Morning*. “But I wanted to bring it into the here and now. I wanted to create something modern and contemporary.” Here, the British singer-songwriter lends his blues-tinged indie anthems an exhilarating pop sheen, as he draws from influences as wide-ranging as ABBA, Britpop, Jefferson Airplane, and more. And where 2017’s *Hearts That Strain* was a mellow and reflective affair, Bugg wanted *Saturday Night, Sunday Morning* to be an album with a euphoric uplift. “I tried to keep it quite positive with the lyrics this time around,” he says. “I didn’t want to fall into the trap of feeling sorry for yourself, especially in a pandemic.” Featuring songs put together with a crack team of cowriters—from leading British songwriter Steve Mac to Ali Tamposi (Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa) and Andrew Wells (Halsey, Phoebe Bridgers)—this album feels like a fresh start for the singer, and it houses some of his most indelible work yet. Read on as Bugg walks us through *Saturday Night, Sunday Morning*, track by track. **“All I Need”** “I wrote this with Steve Mac, and he likes to work very quickly, which suits me fine. We had it written and my parts recorded in the space of four hours, so there wasn’t enough time to think, ‘Oh, this is a good song.’ We were just in the moment. It was exactly the same with \[2012 track\] ‘Lightning Bolt,’ which was written in 10, 20 minutes and I didn’t really think much of it. And then you send it off into the world and people really love it. Those songs are quite simple in terms of chords and progressions, but that’s what people seem to like.” **“Kiss Like the Sun”** “I was really happy when I wrote this song, because the verses had that Britpop-y rock thing going on, which I’ve always loved, but I really love the breakdown of it. I love harmonies, but I felt they’ve always been very lacking on my previous records. I wrote it with \[US songwriters and producers\] Andrew Watt and Ali Tamposi. It was just great to get Ali’s perspective on the lyrics—it gave it a really good, balanced feel. I think I’ve become a bit more open-minded and less defensive when I write with other people.” **“About Last Night”** “This was probably the first track I wrote for the album. The lyrics are quite dark, as are the melodies. To be honest, it was lucky that I wrote this song, because it set the premise for the record in terms of the sound I was looking for. It had everything I wanted—strong melodies and dark lyrics, but also a very pop feel about it. I was looking for something that was different, but that wasn’t too far out there for me.” **“Downtown”** “I wrote this with \[British songwriter\] Jamie Hartman and, again, it was one of those songs I didn’t really think about much at the time. We pieced it together throughout the day and Jamie had this piano line, which goes underneath it. The arrangement was very important and the structure—it’s a bit of an emotional roller-coaster, this song, and it builds throughout until we get the relief at the end. I’d written it for someone who was going through a bit of a hard time, but at the same time, it was also reflective. I’ve had those feelings in the past, and I think a lot of people do. I think just a few words of encouragement can go a long way.” **“Rabbit Hole”** “This was a fun track to write. I did it with my friend \[and LA producer\] Andrew Wells, and one of the influences I wanted to have on this album was Jefferson Airplane. I’m a big fan. I love that old-school psychedelia sound, and I wanted to write something that was a bit psychedelic and quite fun. I’d written it before the pandemic—I didn’t think we’d actually all be going down a rabbit hole, so it became pretty apt through the course of lockdown.” **“Lost”** “This is a different flavor. Steve Mac and I spent the day writing and were in the studio coming up with a few different things. We just put a few ideas down, and then I went back a couple of weeks later. He said he’d started producing it and realized there was actually a good song in it. He built up the production and, by the end, we were left with this cool disco tune. I was prepared for the criticisms that were going to come my way releasing that song. It’s completely different, and I think people probably think that I’ve sold my guitar or something. I think if it’s a good song, you’ve got to release it—it doesn\'t matter.” **“Scene”** “This is probably my personal favorite on the album. It’s got everything that I love about music in there. It’s got a lovely, George Harrison-style solo that Andrew Watt played, but it’s also got that balance that I was looking for, where the verses are quite contemporary and quite modern. I already had the chorus melody idea when I went in to write it with Andrew Watt and Ali Tamposi and, because I come more from a traditional sound, I think bringing it to those guys was a good decision. They helped me form those more contemporary verses around this traditional chorus that I had. It just captured the balance of the record perfectly.” **“Lonely Hours”** “Because it’s called ‘Lonely Hours,’ people go, ‘Oh, did you write that in lockdown?’ but I’d written it with Jamie Hartman in LA a couple years ago. I really liked the track, but I felt like the production could have really taken it to another level, so I took it to Andrew Wells. We went into the studio in London and got a drummer in, got my bass player in, and just rocked out live. It’s a really fun tune to play and it’s going down well \[at shows\] as well.” **“Maybe It’s Today”** “This was the one track that I was unsure about on the album. I felt like it didn’t really fit with the rest of the songs, but then after a bit of work on the mix, it had these church bells going throughout, so I decided maybe we should pull those out and bring the strings up a little bit just to give a more ’60s feel to it. And then, by the end of the mixing process, I was really happy with it. Listening to it in context with the record, I feel like it really fits together nicely.” **“Screaming”** “I just wanted something with real energy, something with a big chorus. We were just absolutely rocking out. We read somewhere that there was a Japanese guy who was on a roller-coaster. Everyone was going crazy and he had no emotion at all, and they said, ‘Why didn’t you scream?’ and he said, ‘I was screaming in my heart.’ And we just thought it was quite a good concept, really. I think a lot of people feel like that—a lot of frustration. There’s a lot of things going on inside people that we don’t see on the exterior. We all have these frustrations and feelings and, some days, we just want to go absolutely crazy.” **“Hold Tight”** “This song was incredibly important for the album. This song is more me than any of the others. These days in modern production, things are cut up and put together, but I was very adamant that that song had to be in a whole take, because it is very much my DNA and who I am. I think it closes the album really well—the lyrics are quite emotional. I felt like it’s one my fans from the first record would really get and like. It was just stamping the album off at the end and letting people know that even though it’s a very different sound, I’ll always only be myself.”

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