The shocking truth about Mitre 10’s Bring on the Weekend jingle

For more than a decade, Mitre 10′s Bring on the Weekend has been a beloved catchcry for weekend lovers nationwide. Photo / The Spinoff

Originally published by The Spinoff.

There’s more to this Friday afternoon catchcry than meets the eye. Alex Casey reports.

Every now and then you come across a novel piece of information that shifts the parameters of your universe. It’s a feeling so thrilling, so expansive, so addictive, that there’s a whole genre of Spinoff story devoted to it. You won’t believe what the K in K Bars stands for. You won’t believe why wine biscuits are called wine biscuits. You won’t believe the secrets of the Canterbury logo. You won’t believe the truth about the Frosty Boy.

In the wise words of a wise man, we must treasure these moments like a jewel. There are so few happy surprises left that unearthing a brand new fun fact these days is worth its weight in Trumpet chocolate tips (which also contain a fun fact in themselves). It’s been a long, dry, fun fact-free few months until my beloved, during his customary Friday afternoon flurry of memes about the pending weekend, sent me this life-changing Spotify link:

That’s right. For more than a decade Mitre 10′s BRING ON THE WEEKEND has been a beloved catchcry for weekend lovers nationwide, but he had discovered that the phrase is in fact just ONE SINGLE LINE in an enormously good three-minute-15-second FULL SONG containing a MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS about bringing on the weekend. We’re talking multiple verses, we’re talking an anthemic chorus, we’re talking one captivating hero’s journey to DIY discovery.

Well it’s five o’clock on a Friday

Only one thing on my mind

I’m heading home, I’m outta here

Stick it where the sun don’t shine

All my girls are waiting

My spanner and my hammer too

And oh my little darling drill

She knows just what to do

The song was written by veteran jingle legend Murray Grindlay, a man responsible for thousands of bangers including the Great Crunchie Train Robbery ad, Speight’s Southern Man and “I’m the polar pop bear”. Grindlay didn’t even realise that the full Bring on the weekend song had been uploaded to his Spotify account and was currently sitting at more than 2000 listens. “I had to listen to it last night because I’d forgotten it,” he said, laughing. “But I liked it, it was cool.”

Well I wake up Saturday morning

A little late, I had a beer with the boys

I can hardly wait to get my hands on

All my precious toys

’What will I do first’ I’m thinking

To make a house a home

Then it’s decided for me

In my darling’s dulcet tones

Grindlay remembered getting this particular brief around 2009, with two creatives from advertising agency FCB visiting his Freeman’s Bay home – the kind of thing that happens when you’ve been writing jingles since the 1970s. “They just said, ‘we want a real New Zealand, good old sort of number-eight-wire thing’” he said. It was an open brief, but with one non-negotiable: “We want you to call it ‘Bring on the weekend’.”

Bring on the Weekend arrived fully formed during Grindlay's first solo writing session. Photo / The Spinoff

Ironically, Grindlay is so averse to the proud New Zealand tradition of home renovation that his own wife calls him “DIY free” at home. “I’m the world’s worst person at DIY, but I’m not too worried about it,” he said. “If I manage to get something right – only a simple thing, like changing a bulb or something – I’ve got this thing that I’ve invented called the DIY walk. It’s a swaggering sort of a walk, a sort of ‘look at this, how do you like that?’”

Despite his DIY deficiencies, Grindlay had no problem channelling a bloke fanging to hit the tools on a Friday. Bring on the Weekend arrived fully formed during his first solo writing session – “I just started strumming and out it came,” he said. As did the “hard case” protagonist of the song. “It’s all about him getting home to all his tools and he’s deciding what to do … I had tremendous fun filling that blank piece of paper.”

Was he really leaning into a borderline parody of the New Zealand male myth and DIY? “Oh yeah, totally.”

And so I take a coin out of my pocket

And I flip it in the air

Heads means ‘do’

And tails does too

Then a hand comes from nowhere

I look into my baby’s eyes

She’s got my coin and then

She said ‘I thought we might go shopping

’What?’… shopping at Mitre 10!’

“That’s the big moment of the last verse – he thinks he’s in trouble, but that’s a false alarm,” explained Grindlay. “And so then he comes storming in going ‘I love that woman so much!’”

Once the song was complete, he took it to the agency and played it for a room of 12 suits. “That was no mean feat, because that last ‘bring on the weekend’ part is quite high,” he said. “But they all applauded when I finished, so that was also a good sign.”

The final version was sung by Pluto’s Milan Borich, who had a more suitable register for the final triumphant BRING ON THE WEEKEND sting that would punctuate Mitre 10 ads for years to come. “You never want your sting to be too ordinary, you know? I usually like to use blue notes for stings, unusual ones, and that’s what that one is too,” explained Grindlay. “It’s a classic blue note – de da da DEE DAA.”

The note may be blue, but the energy and impact of Bring on the Weekend remains quite the opposite. “It was a good one, it would definitely be in my top 20, maybe number 19,” said Grindlay. He was humbled to hear that early positive reviews from my colleagues at The Spinoff (largely summarised as “huge tune”) were rolling in, and that it was even getting added to the office Friday afternoon playlist.

There was only one question remaining: plans for the weekend?

“Oh, watching the rugby.”

No DIY?

“None at all.”