Whigfield says she didn't do Saturday Night dance routine and fought for it to be released

Virgin Radio

23 Aug 2022, 12:10

Whigfield released her iconic single Saturday Night 28 years ago.

If you've ever been to a wedding or school disco you will know the dance moves to Saturday Night.

It turns out though that Whigfield has never done the dance herself.

"I still remember the dance, but I didn’t do it. I thought it was kind of nice that it was just the people doing it.

"We still don’t know who was the first person to come up with it. We’ve been contacted by several people who claim it was them, but the story we think is true is that a gym instructor would do it on the beach in the summer and then tourists on the beach would just copy him and take it round the clubs – that’s how it actually went around.

"I remember I did some promotion in this place north of Madrid and when I was doing the track saw everybody doing this thing and they all jumped at the same time… I hadn’t even known about the dance until then."

She broke records with the tune, and can't believe the success.

"I don’t think about it much – it’s kind of weird. It’s like somebody else’s life.

"I don’t feel the real age when you see yourself in the mirror – I don’t feel any older than 26. I guess if I’d stopped everything and become a mum and stayed at home it would’ve been different, but when you live a fast life, the time seems to fly."

She said nobody wanted to release the song for years.

"Saturday Night was just part of a few demos that had been put down that year. We tried to release it in so many countries but nobody wanted to pick it up until this very very tiny record label in Valencia, Spain – these two guys they had a record store and they picked it up.

"One of the main DJs on one of the main radio stations in Spain, Los Cuarentas Principales started playing it every Saturday night, and it just kind of went from there."

On her record breaking run she said: "I went into the Guinness Book of Records. My grandmother used to cut bits out of newspapers and she couldn’t believe it, she was so proud."