{"id":1138654,"date":"2026-08-08T23:14:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T23:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1138654\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T23:14:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T23:14:20","slug":"the-first-ever-song-played-on-saturday-night-live-in-1975","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1138654\/","title":{"rendered":"The first-ever song played on ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 1975"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Saturday<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ NBC<\/p>\n

Sat 8 August 2026 21:30, UK <\/p>\n

For over 50 years, America\u2019s Saturday Night Live<\/a> has not only stood as TV\u2019s leading comedy show but also as a prime spot for some of music\u2019s most memorable performances.<\/p>\n

While the show has soldiered through dry spells and fluctuating ratings, SNL has endured as a pop cultural institution, launching the careers of everybody from Bill Murray<\/a>, Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, and Tina Fey, and even stretching on to British screens with this year\u2019s Saturday Night Live UK. Despite competition over the years, from Second City Television to In Living Color, nobody has yet managed to knock SNL\u2019s comedy command on the small screen.<\/p>\n

Naturally, such a stature has resulted in the show\u2019s music slots as a key platform for many artists eager to reach new audiences. SNL has also proved to win some of the big names that have taken the Studio 8H stage at Manhattan\u2019s Comcast Building their most iconic shows. From punk band Fear\u2019s live on-air mosh pit<\/a>, Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor\u2019s tearing up of Pope John Paul II\u2019s photograph in protest of the Catholic Church\u2019s abuses, and David Bowie injecting the New York avant-garde to the mainstream with his plastic tuxedo\u2019d rendition of \u2018The Man Who Sold the World\u2019.<\/p>\n

SNL even nearly brought Paul McCartney and John Lennon to the studio <\/a>for an impromptu reunion. Jokingly, show producer Lorne Michaels offered $3,000 if all four Beatles reunited on the show, prompting both McCartney and Lennon, who were watching the tongue-in-cheek proposition from Lennon\u2019s apartment in town, to briefly consider arriving on a whim to claim the cash and play an impromptu jam.<\/p>\n

Lennon remained the only Beatle to never appear on SNL, the remaining three all having guested or hosted during its lengthy run, as well as another key character from Fab Four lore.<\/p>\n

So, what was the first-ever song performed on SNL?<\/p>\n

For the first-ever SNL on October 11th, 1975, stand-up comic and satirist George Carlin introduced America to the original \u2018Not Ready for Prime Time Players\u2019 cast, featuring the debut line-up of Dan Akroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, and Laraine Newman.<\/p>\n

The very first \u2018cold opening\u2019 sketch featured Michael O\u2019Donoghue playing a teacher teaching Belushi\u2019s immigrant student English, when the tutor suddenly dies of a heart attack, and the student dutifully copies the professor\u2019s example by keeling over too. Kick-starting the SNL tradition, a double denimed Chase announced the immortal \u201cLive from New York, it\u2019s Saturday night!\u201d<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n

SNL managed to nab two artists for the debut episode\u2019s music segments. Performing in between Carlin\u2019s monologue and the \u2018shark bite\u2019 skit, folk pop singer Janis Ian sang her \u2018At Seventeen\u2019 hit, then later rounded off the episode before the credits with her wistful \u2018In the Winter\u2019, already demonstrating that a dramatic number could work within a comedy show.<\/p>\n

Taking the stage first, however, was old Beatles associate and master keyboardist Billy Preston<\/a>, who followed Akroyd\u2019s \u2018new dad\u2019 sketch with a performance of \u2018Nothing From Nothing\u2019 with Alan Taylor on drums, later to treat the audience to \u2018Fancy Lady\u2019 off his recently released It\u2019s My Pleasure once Carlin\u2019s second bit on God and religion had finished.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ NBC Sat 8 August 2026 21:30, UK For over 50 years, America\u2019s Saturday Night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1138655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3937],"tags":[91533,261428,180478,77,7167,382,16,15],"class_list":["post-1138654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-1970s","tag-261428","tag-billy-preston","tag-entertainment","tag-saturday-night-live","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117062433981048377","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1138654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1138655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1138654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1138654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1138654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}