Chinatown

Album: Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff grew up in the New Jersey boroughs of New Milford and Woodcliff Lake, but has lived in New York City for his entire working life. This song finds him describing a return to his roots.

    I'll take you out of the city
    Honey, right into the shadow
    Because I wanna find tomorrow
    Yeah, I wanna find tomorrow with you, baby


    He is imploring a girl from Chinatown to join him as he goes home.
  • Speaking about the song, Antonoff said: "It starts in New York City and travels to New Jersey. That pull back to the place I am from mixed with terror of falling in love again. Having to show your cards to someone and the shock when you see them for yourself. Thinking you know yourself and where you are from... Having to see yourself through somebody who you want to stay.

    I started to write this song with these ideas ringing in my head. To further understand who you are pushes you to further understand where you are from and what that looks and sounds like. There are pieces in that, that are worth carrying forever and pieces worth letting die."
  • Antonoff's fellow New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen appears over halfway through to sing along with him on the chorus. Said Antonoff of The Boss: "He is the artist who showed me that the sound of the place I am from has value and that there is a spirit here that needs to be taken all over the world."
  • The video starts off with Antonoff cruising down the I-95 corridor in an old convertible. Springsteen shows up later in the clip, riding shotgun with the Bleachers frontman and hanging out with him in a field as the sun sets.

    Jack Antonoff admitted on NBC's The Tonight Show his license had expired at the time he filmed the video, so the scenes of the pair on the open road weren't technically within the law.
  • Bleachers released the song as the lead single from their third album. He accompanied it with an acoustic guitar-driven companion single "45," which is its mirror image: the lyrics describe Antonoff's transition from his New Jersey hometown to New York.
  • Bleachers performed this song on the January 15, 2022 episode of Saturday Night Live. The Jack Antonoff-fronted band filled in for the originally scheduled musical guest, American rapper Roddy Ricch, who dropped out after a possible COVID exposure. Bleachers also played another Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night track, "How Dare You Want More."

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