sometimes i never really understand a song until i cover it. i always thought of this as a celebration of saturday night cruising, now i see it as the reflections of an older person on his youthful exploits and how things arent what they used to be, no matter what you do to try to recapture them
I love Tom Waits songs and always enjoy a cover. I’d always thought of it as you did, to be honest, but I like your alternative interpretation. It makes sense.
the clue was that at the end he is stumbling through the heart of saturday night, i always wndered why he was stumbling and thought he had just been a sloppy writer… grabbing at an alternate word. then everything became clear that he was viewing these idealized moments i(deaming of those saturdays that came before) in the past from his present compromised position as a stumbling drunkard loser. of course, when he wrote the song, he was still in his prime.