Entertainment For Lively Minds
Where Are All The Songs About Work?
We were listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival singing a song about picking cotton and wondering: how come nobody writes songs about working any more? Where are the records about working in a call centre, about European working time directives and problems with a dicky photocopier, about trying to find a meeting room, maternity leave or the difficulty of dealing with the I.T. department? While you're thinking of some here are ten key records about the world of work.
10. Bruce Springsteen: Factory
Rock stars want it both ways. These days they're mourning the fact that manufacturing jobs have been exported to the low-wage economies of the Third World. Back in the 80s they were singing about the dead eyes of the workers trudging into the belching body of the factory beast. What do they actually want?
9. Belle and Sebastian: Step Into My Office, Baby
From the Kinks onwards arty pop groups have written songs insisting that everyone who goes to work in an office has sacrificed their individuality to the man. I think we're showing remarkable forebearance.
8. Little Feat: Willin'
In Britain the truckers mythology begins and ends with Eddie Stobart. In America it's a whole section in the record shop. They used to say that if you got it a truck brought it. Here Lowell George of Little Feat explains how they drive those long distances. Weed, whites and wine.
7. The Mutton Birds: A Thing Well Made
This is the second time in a week we've featured this. It's a brilliant song about a guy who runs a guns and tackle shop. There simply aren't enough songs about shopkeepers. This one likes to open up early so that guys can browse on their way to work. "Go on, have yourself a look. I'm proud of my shop."
6. The Strawbs: Part Of The Union
Pop stars like to think they're left wing. That's why this tune is usually excised when it comes to recalling the high spots of the 70s. It's seen as selling the Thatcherite line. All it's doing in fact is reflecting life for a working musician in the early 70s when touring and broadcasting work might bring them into contact with union intransigence at every turn.
5. The Easybeats: Friday On My Mind
Not strictly a record about working but definitely about the main focus of the working week for many people.
4. Donna Summer: She Works Hard For The Money
In this fabulously over-literal video depicting the life of the less-than-superwoman of the 80s there's the last filmed instance of a woman being flattered by the idea of getting her arse pinched.
3. Peggy Lee: I'm A Woman
The 50s housewife knew the work she did on the home front was tougher than his and there was nobody waiting with a martini when it was finished. "I can scoop up a great big dipper full of lard from the dripping can/Throw it in the skillet, go out and do my shopping, be back before it melts in the pan." No thanks, Peg. We just ate.
2. Fountains Of Wayne: Bright Future In Sales
FOW are honest enough to admit that the nearest they've come to the world of work is a few week's temping. Still, that's long enough to make up their mind that they don't want to do it again and to get enough material to write the best song about what it's like to work for companies like Wernham Hogg, which is what most people do nowadays.
1. Glenn Campbell: Wichita Lineman
He's a lineman for the county which means he spends his days out on the prairies making sure than the powerlines haven't been brought down by a snow fall, high winds or even a twister. But while he's doing that he safeguards his sanity by thinking about his girl. Isn't that what most people are doing at work? Daydreaming?
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If I Were A Carpenter
"If I Were A Carpenter" is sort of about work. Of course then you have to argue about which version is best.
I'd argue
It was Tim Hardin's.
The Four Tops
get my vote. So baroque.
Tim Hardin is my pick as
Tim Hardin is my pick as well, but the strife is ensuing already! I wanted to be a uniter, not a divider!
Great list, here's a couple more
Here's a heartbreaking example from Martha Tilston, Artificial.
"I switch on my machine, I'm sleeptyping, I answer the phone, I'm sleep hyping, I don't even know what I'm selling. The boss wants a word, I've been clock watching. I wish I was a bird I'd fly right out of the window."
Or here's something a bit more raucous, 22 Grand Job by The Rakes. Check out the handclap bridge and key change, all in just 2 minutes - if all indie was like this then we could save on landfill space me thinks.
Accountancy Shanty
You chose the wrong Belle & Sebastian song
A fine example of working life is "Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It". Particularly relevant now when 700,000 people are apparently to lose their jobs by Christmas.
No YouTube link but worth downloading straight from iTunes/Word Download store and you can probably listen to it here:
http://www.last.fm/music/Belle+and+Sebastian/_/Take+Your+Carriage+Clock+...
mathew and son
and the mighty 9 to 5 by either Dolly or Sheena and of course "the day before you came" by ABBA bit longer list here.
http://living4pleasurealone.blogspot.com/2007/09/finest-work-song.html.
One reason is that most Rock stars are work shy fops also they still seem to harbour politics stuck in 1950's plus alarge dollop opf middle class guilt.
I also think there is a lack of empathy for their audience not seen in soul or country music.
I thought the same the other day hearing Seth lakeman sing about a shipping disaster nice song and all that but of relevance to 1% of the population.
Lastly it may be along time before the likes of Van morrison right a positive song about accountants and lawyers!
OK, let's see now, what have we got...
Scotland's Finest, Sheena Easton
Dolly on the impact of the Working Time Directive
and Paul Butterfirld's classic from East-West
Office Girl by Mike Leslie
A rather lovely slice of baroque pop there.
Shriekback's Working On The Ground
Does a chain gang count as work? Sam Cooke then. However I suppose prison is a whole different genre.
Del Amitri's Nothing Ever Happens, though dated with it's talk of typewriter covers and telex machines, is at least about offices.
macca's
"temporary secretary" would fall foul of today's employment laws .
It's noticeable most of these titles are 10-20 years old.
The folkies and blues guys get it right here...
... and this is the very wonderful Matt McGinn singing about his dream job. Is life under Hepworth and Ellen like this?
Or is it like this?
My money's on the latter...
Man In The Cornershop
I reckon if you polled old Jam fans about their favourite songs this would make the top ten. Typical Weller simplistic class war stuff. Factory worker/ shop owner/ factory boss. Went down a treat “back in the day”.
Did any members of CCR ever actually pick any cotton? I very much doubt it. Here’s one of the best work songs. It’s “really outasight”.
Nice work if you can get it:
Sam Cooke - Chain Gang
Curtis Mayfield - Pusherman
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Workin' For MCA
The Silhouettes - Get A Job
DJ - proper job? Discuss!
David Bowie - DJ
More Jam
Smithers Jones, Burning Sky, Billy Hunt, Just Who IS the Five O'Clock Hero etc etc
More recently Daysleeper by REM
The best of the bunch...
...has to be this, from Merle Haggard. Some of James Burton's finest playing.
EDIT: Embedding disabled, so try this:
http://sixsongs.blogspot.com/2008/09/work-workin-man-blues.html
I'll throw you this one as a bonus:
I'll go the country route
Merle Haggard - Working Man Blues
Take This Job and Shove It - Johnny Paycheck
Buck Owens - Truck Drivin' Man
Turned Up Clocked On Laid Off
Here are two of my favourites:
"Workin' Girl Blues" by Cherryholmes:
http://www.divshare.com/download/5301563-9bb
"I Can't Wait To Get Off Work" by Tom Waits:
http://www.divshare.com/download/5301573-cde
Who could forget this timeless classic?
How is it possible...
that that risible lyric ("I ain't gonna cry for ya if you're lazy") is by the same man that penned 'Satisfaction'?
Graveyard Shift by Uncle Tupelo
"Well, time won't wait, better open the gate
Get up and start what needs to be done
It's winding down, there's much you missed
Working on that graveyard shift"
Sure it's cheesy but it's brilliant!
Danny Kortchmar on guitar
Lee Sklar on Bass
James Taylor on acoustic
Big hairy caterpillar on James Taylor!
Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry
by Heaven 17?
The Day Before You Came by Abba/Blancmange?
Still Ill by The Smiths?
more recent, fisherman's son - Port O'Brian
And let's not forget...
And a bit older , Rush - Working Man
Two great songs and one by New Order
Martha Wainwright - Factory
Kirsty MacColl - There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis
New Order - Working Overtime
And here's Kirsty miming on TOTP:
Patti Smith
with 'Piss Factory'
Clash 'Career Opportunities'
Kraftwerk 'The Model'
Flaming Lips 'Race for the Prize'
Blue Orchids 'Work'
and what about 'We Are All Prostitutes' by the Pop Group?
songs about work
Mr Suit - Wire. Very angry.
I'm at work now!
...so ironically due to workplace technology protocols I can't see what youtube clip is being embedded when people write stuff like "How about..." and "How could we forget..."
That disclaimer aside - my contributions are :
Cardiac Arrest - Madness
Happy Hour - The Housemartins
Synchronicity II - The Police
Making Plans for Nigel - XTC
Work Hard! - Depeche Mode
"Interestingly", our pop stars tend to write downbeat songs reagrding the world of work. I feel pretty upbeat if I have a good day and it would be good to celebrate the unparalleled nobility of a Job Well Done with a fitting song. Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer is close but you feel that the workers in the song are ultimately being exploited - but they've got each other - and that's a lot.
Probably too much to hope for a song called "Yes! The spreadsheet balanced!" - although I fully expect that "Weird!" Al Yankovic has written a song about accountancy to the tune of Aretha Franklin's Respect or something hilarious like that.
'Money For Nothing'
Killed by over exposure but rather a good track I think.
Heaven knows, I'm miserable now...
The Smiths' pithy critique of 1980s dole culture.
Also, what about 'Krafty' by New Order - all about wanting escape the daily drudge.
Theme tune!
Heaven knows... has been adopted by my wife and colleagues as their theme tune. Both the opening line and the line "what she asked of me at end of the day, Caligula would have blushed" resonate with them. Actually she loves her job - most people would hate it.
Saw Billy Bragg a couple of years (when he was sponsored by Unite - "the people who brought you the weekend") - introducing Between the Wars he mused "I was a docker, I was a coalminer? If I wrote this now it would be I was a call centre worker".
Krafty
I was always a bit cynical about Krafy, what do New Order know about that kind of working life?
Used their imagination?
Do you always have to live it to write about it? Lots of songs are written about situations removed from the writer's own.
Niche carving
The Decemberists appear to be making an attempt to corner the market with the following:
The Chimbley Sweep
The Engine Driver
The soldiering life
Eli, the barrow boy
The Mariner's revenge song
and ... er ... The Shankhill Butchers! ... Sorry
More Bruce
As well as Factory, you've got Out In The Street,Working On The Highway, Youngstown, Highway Patrolman...you could go on forever.
How about this?
Everything Counts
Depeche Mode - Everything Counts
Warren Zevon's "The Factory" is another great work related song - couldn't find that track so here's another instead from the same album (Splendid Isolation).
Zevon
Funnily enough, I was listening to the album Sentimental Hygiene today; and whilst 'The Factory' is on it, I think you'll find that 'Splendid Isolation' is on Transverse City. Cracking song though, and my current ringtone.
That's right......
Cheers Lucas - addled mind this morning I fear.
For what it's worth
I think it should be on Sentmental Hygiene!
Was just going to mention Warren Zevon
but see above ! Have we included The Specials Working for the Rat Race ?
This one tells it how it is
Ben Folds does melancholy with Fred Jones Part 2
CORPORATE
Steely Dan - Everything Must Go
Side-stepping decades of political correctness, Donald Fagan moves to “dissolve the corporation in a pool of margaritas” and enquires of Miss Fugazy whether she might enjoy “a little face time in the service elevator” with him and Dave from Acquisitions.
Happy endings have never been Steely Dan’s forte. If this proves to be the final word from the group, then it’s a characteristically sour note to go out on.
R.E.M – Daysleeper
An insomniac 3am waltz through the receiving department of an anonymous financial company – the florescent lighting, the caffeine, the grainy, early morning daylight and the omnipresent computer screens.
Radar Bros - Capital Gain
It’s difficult to know whether to take this song literally or as an allegory. An absence of printed lyrics muddies the waters. Every now and then a coherent sentence pokes through: “I see seats arranged in such a way, they give you better visual display” and later - “I surrender you to the cops”. Reminds me of the Enron scandal.
Blur - Yuko and Hiro
Perhaps the saddest love song Damon Albarn ever wrote. A pair of Japanese lovers attempt to fit their relationship around the demands of a six day working week.
The High Llamas – Apricots
Sean O’ Hagen’s city accountant reflects on the country’s slide into recession during the 1980s. The song ends with him at home alone, eating tinned apricots.
“Back in the eighties
the air smelled like roses
I flew my big black balloon
as an accountant, over the city
staring straight at the moon
Then all my friends quit smoking
saying an ill wind had set in
none of us can win
I started drinking in City gymnasiums
hanging out with the guys
Now all the streets are empty
no one calls, I'm eating in
apricots from tins.”
Working stiffs
American singer songwriter Chris Knight with the title track of his 2006 album Enough Rope;
and another by James McMurtry that makes a wider point than simply going to work;
Also making a wider point but still about the Irish working life here in the UK, Paul Brady wrote this in the 80's;
Back in the 80's Steve Earle also wrote Someday:
Paul Brady also took us up to date with working in the 2000's
with Working For The Corporation from the Say What You Feel album, but there's no video for that.
A forgotten working class(ic) album
Virtually all the songs on The Redskins Neither Washington Nor Moscow such as:
The Power Is Yours
Keep On Keepin' On
Mostly about not working or going on Strike though.
Cannot forget Billy Bragg's Between The Wars either!
And to prove I know a little more than 80's indie how about Lee Dorsey's Working In A Coal Mine
The mundane jobs
Patty Griffin's Making Pies from her 1,000 Kisses album is about day to day working and broken dreams.
Work
Lou Reed & John Cale "Work" from "Songs for Drella".
and on the loosest possible work related topic (the song is autobiographic tale of when some of Hammell On Trial's friends got hired to work for Yoko Ono) is Hamell on Trial's "John Lennon".
Dan Reeder - Painter and Decorator/Blues Singer
Tried to find Dan Reeder's Work Song on video but couldn't but you'll find this wonderful song on his myspace. http://www.myspace.com/danreeder
Many of his songs mention his work and how many doors he has to paint and Work Song sums up most of our reactions to workloads. He recorded his first album in his 50's sent it to John Prine as a thank you from a fan and he released it.
I guarantee you'll be singing along.
The time to rise has been engaged
This is the finest worksong:
Placebo "Slave To The Wage"
ZZ Top - Just Got Paid
Not sure if this makes the cut, given that it's technically about the immediate aftermath of the post-working week, but it's a hell of a racket...
Bottle Rockets are real workin' man's rock
Bottle Rockets....Gotta Get Up
Workin in a Coal Mine Lee Dorsey
Work Songs
Willard Grant Conspiracy - Work Song
The Stones - Factory Girl
Clive James again
Clive's been getting a few mentions in this thread http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/quick-question-what-music this weekend, but he also wrote what I think is the best song about the working man for Pete Atkin, Carnations On The Roof off A King at Nightfall. Lyrics here : http://www.peteatkin.com/c2.htm.
The 13-year old me thought the image of the metal in the engineer's knuckles flaring as he's cremated was very powerful, and the 49-year old me still does. I also vowed not to be "used and discarded in a game I didn't own"; I haven't been discarded yet but I've been used a fair bit.
Working Man - Rush
Now, I know to get your blue collar credentials in you have to have a tune about how going to work has broken your soul, how every morning that you go to the office is like marching into the monster's belly.
But, the problem is, some of these rockers haven't done a day's work in their young lives and come up a little short when trying to express the pain of the working man. No-one falls quite so far from the mark though as everyone's favourite Candian prog-rockers Rush in their tune 'Working Man'.
Here's the first verse:
"I get up at seven, yeah
And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time"
Working all the time are you? Here's my take on it, pal, you're lying in until 7.00am, you're then sauntering around the house having a nice slow get up and then, a good couple of hours after you've first awoken from nature's sweet restorer, you're finally leaving the house. That, my friend, is not 'working all the time' that's having a lie in!
And it's not like he's getting up to do a long shift either is it? Here's another verse:
"I get home at five o'clock
And I take myself out a nice, cold beer
Always seem to be wonderin'
Why there's nothin' goin' down here"
Home at five, cracking open a cold one!!! That's not 'working all the time' that's the good life! You wouldn't be called the 'working man' round my way for these antics, chum, you'd be called 'a lay-about drunk'.
And I'll tell him why nothing's going down round his place at 5.00pm on a weekday - it's cos the rest of us are at work!!!
Disco
PS Dolly Parton, yes, 9 to 5 what a way to make a living!!! I'll happily take those hours!
to be fair to Rush
it was a track on the first album , thats more than 20 years ago .
Old and obscure......
Charles, by The Skids?
Off to scour YouTube.......
Here we are....
THE SERVICE INDUSTRY
The Auteurs – Valet Parking
Luke Haines has long been a champion of the resentful downstairs classes, biding their time and awaiting some far-off moment of schadenfreude when the balance of power between master and servant is reversed. “Your Chauffeur’s tired, you’re still on heat” he complains here, before signing off: “Your unfaithful slave.”
More accepting of his lot is Pete Aves’ Rubber Soul-referencing Driver to the Stars - a man in a polyester suit who could line his pockets with the stories he’s heard, but who remains happy just to “slip it in first and pull off without a word.”
The Lemonheads - Paid to Smile
“The cigarette girl
took off her tray
and dropped her dress
in a shiny pile
pulled her pants up on her way
when gets home she'll
laugh a while.”
Moonshake - Just a Working Girl
David Callahan’s vocal style projects a visceral disgust that lends itself well to his tales of the UK’s less salubrious side, but presumably leaves the Rogers and Hart songbook off-limits to him. Here he reels-off a list of a prostitute’s clientele, each one a grotesque caricature, defined by their chosen profession. Polly Harvey sings the chorus.
“A fishmonger who hasn’t washed in a week
A graphic artist who rinses so much he squeaks
A butcher with knotted muscles and a potted belly
Medical students, all schoolboy chuckles and petroleum jelly.”
Ryan Adams’ Rolling Stones homage - Tina Toledo’s Street Walkin’ Blues channels the ghost of the Exile on Main Street sessions. It’s one of those songs ‘devil on your shoulder’ songs that makes a bad lifestyle choice sound like a good idea; in this case, sleeping with strangers to pay for medical school.
Piano Magic - I Am the Sub-Librarian
Deep breaths break like waves over looped gamelan, while reedy, militantly-indie vocals sketch out a melody. An oddly hypnotic journey through the London suburbs.
“I am the Sub-Librarian
come in on the council bus
Chalk Farm to Highgate Woods
Sports bag of borrowed books
A steady diet of Brautigan
'Tapestry' on the walkman
Paranormal ill-health
from dusting off the top shelf
I am the Sub-Librarian
counter girl, tea-maker
I am the Sub-Librarian
swan feeder, spectacle breaker
I am the Sub-Librarian.”
THE WORKING CLASSES
The Divine Comedy - Freedom Road
Neil Hannon takes his tongue out of his cheek for this tale of a truck driver suffering an existential crisis, caught between the romance of his profession and the equally affecting reality.
“When I was a boy I'd fantasize
About the freedom road. I'd drive
A thousand miles before sundown,
Father a child in every town.
But a hundred thousand miles have passed
Between me and iconoclastic images
Of the freedom road.
I wanna shed this heavy load.
Well I've seen the power of the lightning storm,
I've seen the endless ears of corn,
I've seen the lakes at the break of day,
And that shit takes my breath away.
But if I were to even start
To tell them how it melts my heart,
Never more would my truck-stop friends
Look me in the eye again.”
Big Black – The Power of Independent Trucking
Big Black’s tribute to the U.S. haulier. All the iconography of a life spent on the open road is here: Smoking a chicken over open coals; being punched in the face; raping a pig using mind control...
Beck - Soul Sucking Jerk
Demented DIY hip hop. A Take Your Job and Shove It for the McJob generation.
Lambchop – The Militant
Kurt Wagner’s previous career laying hardwood floors yielded this song, inspired by his discovery of pro-KKK graffiti, scrawled by one of his employees in wet cement.
“I gouge them out with a screwdriver
till there's nothing left
but some crumpled concrete.”
Motörhead - (We are) The Road Crew
A rapidfire succession of one line snapshots, chronicling the lives of those modern day successors to the Vikings – the Motörhead road crew.
Massive Attack - Group 4
Dysfunctional relationships and ensuing emotional anomie, where a night job as a security guard becomes preferable to lying down next to your partner.
The White Stripes - Rag and Bone
Jack and Meg audition for a new career in the scrap business and sound like they might be good at it.
Day-Oh !
How about one we know as The Banana Boat Song ? If you want a sense of a work song check the version by the Lititz Mento Band on the Island Blues compilation. When Harry Belafonte sang it, he didn't sing of it being "pure extortion". These workers really, really want to go home.
IN DEFIANCE OF SIR MICK JAGGER
The Blue Nile – Over the Hillside
Amidst multitudes of furrowed-browed pretenders, this is true Celtic Soul. Ambient music weighted down by an unfathomable sadness; the quiet desperation of a man working just to stay solvent.
“Workin' night and day
I try to get ahead
But I don't get ahead this way
Workin' night and day
The railroad and the fence
Watch the train go roll around the bend.”
Luke Haines - Never Work
Luke Haines incites a nation to down tools and call a general strike. His perversely heartfelt “Just say no, Just say no” echoing the sentiments of the similarly titled 1986 single released by the cast of the long-running BBC school drama – Grange Hill, to warn a generation of ten year olds about the dangers of Smack.
The Kinks - Situations Vacant
The last word on the perils of placing decisions regarding your employment and job satisfaction in the hands of your mother-in-law. Ray Davies segues effortlessly from 1960s grooviness to Ealing comedy farce.
MOney for nothing
Nobody mentioned this yet?
"We've got to move these refigerators
We've got to move these colour TVs".
"Hard day's night" includes "You know I work all day to get you money to buy you things".
XTC "Love on a farmboy's wages" although I imagine that farmboys are thin on the ground in Swindon.
The Pogues "Paddy works on the railway (trad)".
Elvis Costello "Welcome to the working week".
Then, of course, there's the Village People and "In the Navy" - surely a song about day-to-day experience at sea.
Bauhaus
made The Spy In The Cab - a 'sinister' comment on the introduction of tachographs in lorries. Just the sort of workaday subject matter we could do with from the modern goth, rather that mumbo jumbo & personal angst.
Not Just Tracks
but entire albums about work:
"The Apprentice" by John Martyn - synth heavy pseudo disco in places but still glorious; and
"Industry" by Richard and Danny Thompson (no relation) - flat cap and clog referencing concept piece from venerable string oriented pair (and again, glorious).
the magnificent Five O'Clock World by The Vogues.
Five O'Clock World by The Vogues from 1966.
.
Easily the finest song about a soul-destroying job to contain yodelling segments ever written. Also covered by Julian Cope.
Drive-By Truckers
Righteous Path. Sorry, I couldn't find it on YouTube.
Cleaning Windows
Of both the George Formby ('When I'm...') and Van Morrison varieties. Amazingly, only the former exists on YouTube.
Then there's Free Love On The Free Love Freeway - surely the greatest song ever written by a fictitious middle manager.
Loudon Wainwright
Couldn't find a clip of this, but Loudon's song Tip that Waitress, gives plenty of reasons why your waitress deserves a tip - some of the lyrics below:
She's been on her feet nearly half the damn night
Bringing you beverage and your late night bite
She remains cheerful when you're nasty and tight
Makes change for a fifty in dim candlelight.
Ignoring your groping hoping you might
Come across with a tip and sympathize with her plight.
Shes getting her masters supporting her mom
Amidst the confusion she remains cool and calm
She knows exits in case of a fire or bomb
She knows all the words to the 23rd psalm
She handles her tray with panache and aplomb
Her brothers a Quaker, her dad was in Naa-aaa-aaa-aam
Tip that waitress.
Her arches are aching, her lower backs shot
Her varicose vein hurts like hell when its hot
Her uniform's too tight, tasteful its not
She knows the specials and they are not a lot.
The cook is on Qualudes the bus boy deals pot
If she had a real job she'd quit on the spot
So tip that waitress.