Everyday Is Like Sunday

But then I thought of a song about a boring place. “Everyday Is Like Sunday” is about a boring English coastal town that feels abandoned and lifeless. Morrissey compares the atmosphere to the stillness and emptiness of a Sunday when everything is closed and nothing happens.

When I was young I was very aware of the difference between “boring” and “exciting” or “interesting”. These days, I don’t spend much time with people outside the family. I’m always glad to have a little chat, but I have no appetite for spending hours and hours with anyone. So, no-one seems boring. I don’t tend to feel trapped. I’m at peace within myself, so perhaps I’m boring to other people 😀. I don’t like applying such a negative label to people. For example, right now, I’m listening to Tony Blackburn on BBC Radio 2. I love listening to him. Now, if I was listening to a modern DJ, I wouldn’t be as pleased, but I wouldn’t find him or her boring.

The Morrissey song is interesting because it’s all about being bored, but I associate it with happy memories. I remember it being played on the ship to England for my honeymoon on the day that I got married back in 1988. That’s what I like about pop music. It becomes the soundtrack for your life, and it can transport you back to another point in time. I even feel that way about songs that I might have despised at the time. For example, back in 1978, I used to hate all the disco music of the time, such as “Staying Alive” by The Bee Gees. And now when I hear it, I’m 16 again 😀.

And I do remember being bored on Sundays when I was young. I often wondered why. We used to have a little saying:

Friday night is my delight

And so is Saturday morning,

But Sunday night, I get a fright

When I think of school in the morning.

So you had this “tomorrow I’ll be back at school or work” feeling. And everything was closed. We went to Mass, but I found that boring too.

Things changed when I got to 18. I committed my life to Christ and started attending an evangelical church in the morning and evening, which brought me a lot of joy.

Of course, that “going back to work” feeling remained 😀. And in the early 1990s, everything started staying open on Sundays here in Ireland. So, maybe it doesn’t feel very different. But I still find that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday feel different to other days. They all have a character of their own.

Sunday is meant to be a happy day, and at one stage it was your only day off, even if you were a slave. The Scribes and Pharisees used to use the Sabbath laws to bully and criticize others. But Jesus rebuked them:

Mark 2:27-28
²⁷ Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

I’m not terribly strict or legalistic about the Sabbath, but I like to spend more time on enjoyable spiritual activities, such as going to church and listening to hymns on Sounds Sacred on Radio Ulster. But I also try to do that sort of thing during the week. So, as Morrissey sang, “Everyday Is Like Sunday”.

Christians have different views on the Sabbath, more widely known as the Lord’s Day. A minority believe that we should stick to the Old Testament day, Saturday. But the early church shifted the day to the day of the resurrection of Jesus. And many see the Sabbath and its laws as more related to Jewish civil and ceremonial laws, so it isn’t carried over into the New Testament. Yet the principle remains. So, most Christians celebrate the Lord’s Day. It significant that “Keep holy the Sabbath day” is one of the 10 commandments.

Here are a few hymns about the Lord’s Day.