“Come Saturday Morning” was first performed by The Sandpipers as part of the soundtrack for the 1969 movie the Sterile Cuckoo, a film featuring Liza Minnelli. The song was written by Fred Karlin (music) and Dory Previn (lyrics). In 1970, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Unfortunately “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was also nominated that year so that was that.
The Sandpipers were one of those groups formally classified as folk-rock, but really pretty folky with harmonies you were more likely to hear at the height of the folk revival in late ’50s and early ’60s before the whole British Invasion thing happenned- not that I’m complaining. To prove my point, along with “Come Saturday Morning,” The Sandpipers are best known for their cover version of “Guantanamera.”
Not to get into it here, but a favourite topic for me has always been how folk music sort of got lost in the transition to rock in the ’60s, but didn’t really get lost when one considers the folk influences in groups like The Birds, The Mama and the Papas, and The Lovin’ Spoonful, not to mention the splash made by singer-songwriters in the early ’70s. Clearly those scoring a big-budget movie in 1969 had no trouble using a song that is more folk than anything else – but I digress.
“Come Saturday Morning” is a pretty little song with pretty little chord changes. Not life changing, but sweet, and a favourite of mine.