Music and lyrics
Heavily influenced by 1950s doo-wop, "Drive-In Saturday" describes how the inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic world in the future (Bowie once said the year was 2033) have forgotten how to have sex, and need to watch old films to see how it is done. The narrative has been cited as an example of Bowie's "futuristic nostalgia", where the story is told from the perspective of an inhabitant of the future looking back in time.
Its composition was inspired by strange lights amidst the barren landscape between Seattle, Washington, and Phoenix, Arizona, as seen from a train at night on Bowie's 1972 US tour. The music featured Bowie's synthesiser and saxophone, while the lyrics name-checked Mick Jagger ("When people stared in Jagger's eyes and scored"), the model Twiggy ("She'd sigh like Twig the wonder kid"), and Carl Jung ("Jung the foreman prayed at work"). The reference to Jung is significant according to artist Tanja Stark, and heralds the pivotal influence of Jungian depth psychology frameworks upon his career. She suggests the lyric "crashing out with sylvian" is a cryptic reference to the Sylvian fissure in the brain associated with visionary and hallucinatory experiences.
Recording and release
Bowie premiered the song live in November 1972—initially at either Pirate's World, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, or Celebrity Theatre, Phoenix—well before committing it to tape. He offered it to Mott the Hoople as a follow-up to the Bowie-penned "All the Young Dudes", but they turned it down in favour of "Honaloochie Boogie". Bowie later said that he was unsure why they rejected it because it "would've been a great single for them". However, according to Mott the Hoople's drummer Dale Griffin, Bowie initially said it would be their next single before he changed his mind, which Griffin said inspired them to write an original song instead.
Bowie's studio version, recorded in New York on 9 December 1972, was released as a single on 6 April 1973, one week ahead of the album, and remained in the charts for 10 weeks, reaching No. 3 in the UK. The B-side, "Round and Round", was a cover of Chuck Berry's track "Around and Around", a leftover from the Ziggy Stardust sessions. In most territories, the single was the same length as the album cut, aside from Germany, which received a shorter 3:59 edit. Bowie encyclopedist Nicholas Pegg describes "Drive-In Saturday" as "arguably the finest track on Aladdin Sane", as well as "the great forgotten Bowie single", which he attributed to the fact that it was not issued on a greatest hits album until almost 20 years after its release. Biographer David Buckley has called "Drive-In Saturday" and "Rebel Rebel" Bowie's "finest glam-era singles".
Some commentators have ranked the song among Bowie's finest. In The Guardian, Alexis Petridis voted it in number 10 in his list of Bowie's 50 greatest songs in 2020, calling it a one of Bowie's best singles. In other lists, the song has ranked at number 26, 24 and 79 in NME, Uncut and Mojo, respectively. In a 2016 list ranking every Bowie single from worst to best, Ultimate Classic Rock placed "Drive-In Saturday" at number 49.
