Songs About Quitting Your Job?

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Ha! Finally my enslavement to the many-headed hydra of Research International is over. I shall celebrate in the time-honoured popkid fashion, by the making of a mixtape! But what songs should be on it?

You can also use this topic to ask or spread salacious work gossip, should you so choose....

― Tom (Groke), Saturday, 26 August 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Even though I like my current boss (my immediate one, that is - the overarching bureaucracy can bite me), I still have gleeful visions of myself running amok when I play the Flaming Lips' "Bad Days" ("you hate your boss at your job/but in your dreams you can blow his head off/in your dreams/show no mercy").

― Josh (Josh), Saturday, 26 August 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

The mixtape to celebrate quitting your job, Tom? Were I in such a position (as opposed to never even having *had* a job, you can get awfully arrogant in my situation):

SIDE A The Monochrome Set, "405 Lines" Outkast, "Bombs Over Baghdad" XTC, "The Meeting Place" The Magnetic Fields, "Take Ecstacy With Me" Peter Howell, "Greenwich Chorus" The High Llamas, "Up In The Hills" The Shangri-Las, "Give Him A Great Big Kiss"

SIDE B Julian Cope, "Reynard The Fox" Kool Keith, "Don't Crush It" The Auteurs, "Some Changes" Pharoahe Monch & Canibus, "Hell" Jay-Z, "Big Pimpin'" Momus, "Enlightenment" Marshall Hain, "Dancing In The City"

Robin (off in his own little world as usual)

― The Extension Trip, Saturday, 26 August 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

someone i used to work with posted 'round the lyrics to New Order's True Faith on the day he left his job. bless him, he was always a bit of a tosser.

for your tape, off the top of my head i'd suggest Lost In Music by Sister Sledge and The Smiths' Sheila Take A Bow. bah, i'd love to have time to make tapes ....

― Irene, Monday, 28 August 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

You celebrate by making a mixtape? No, YOU DO NOT. You celebrate by ordering a brilliant pizza, picking up some fantastic wine and having a laugh with your friends. And if you're not doing this right now I will chain you to the Levellers' caravan and make you listen to them AGAIN AND AGAIN.

Once all that is done, then you make said tape. So 20th century, though; it's all CDRs and mp3 folders these days. Try starting with Ween's "Pumpin' 4 the Man." ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 28 August 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

i know your thoughts on the clash, tom, but it would be hard to overlook "career opportunities" as one of the best anti-job songs around. and if we're talking about that time anyway, how about the ramones' "i wanted everything," which not only tells the sad tale of a grocery store robbery, but features the immortal lines "i don't like burger king/i don't like anything."

― nick bradley, Monday, 28 August 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

"Wind Up Workin' in a Gas Station" - Frank Zappa

― Josh, Tuesday, 29 August 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Did you know that NWA only wrote 'F*ck the police' after Ice Cube was thrown out of LA's finest? Certainly some kind of leaving your job rekkird. See also Chuck D's memorable exit from the prison service chronicled on 'Black Stell in the Hour of Chaos.'

― Alex Thomson, Wednesday, 30 August 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Not, perhaps, in the spirit of the thread, but a suggestion for the tape closer: Replacements' "(I Need a) God Damn Job"

― Jeff, Wednesday, 30 August 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

'Leave' by the Barenaked Ladies. 'Back to life' by Soul II Soul. 'Movin' on up' by M People.

All for the cheesy obviousness of the lyrics.

Congratulations on your liberty.

― Mark, Thursday, 31 August 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

How could I have forgotten?! "Piss Factory" by Patti Smith!

― Stevie Trousse, Friday, 1 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Don't leave me this way - The Communards Who's got the last laugh now - Frankie Sinatra We gotta get outta this place - Animals Ain't nobody here but us chickens - Louis Jordan

(note absence of incriminating Research International email address...)

― Paul, Friday, 1 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Take This Job And Shove It by the Dead Kennedys is short, sharp and to the point (and probably already mentioned somewhere).

― Gruf, Tuesday, 5 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

i'm pretty sure you don't like him, but beck's "Soul Sucking Jerk" is great. for extra irony points, the superior reject version. ha!

― Catherine, Wednesday, 6 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Whyever not Frankly Mr Shankley, even if the lyrics are dated...

― ben the visible, Friday, 8 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

There are only really two you need:

'Makin' Plans' as recorded by Dolly Parton and, I think, Waylon Jennings,

and

'Leavin' On Your Mind' (Patsy Cline).

I have half a mind to start a subconversation (as Natalie Sarraute used to say at cocktail parties) about this 'voice' question (cf also the 6ths review). Namely: who likes or dislikes the voices of Patsy Cline and / or Dusty Springfield, and why? I'm not sure about Patsy, but I find Dusty S 'overrated', not in her canonical significance, not in terms of her range, but in terms of her... accent. The voice that her singing seems to bespeak seems to me gratingly midatlantic.

― pf, Sunday, 10 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

one month passes...

Well it's not so much work related, but the Bowie song Kooks has a great like - throw your homework onto the fire - or something. Right now I'm listening to the Magnetic Fields and can't for the life of me remember the damn Bowie lyrics :P

― alexis, Thursday, 12 October 2000 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

three weeks pass...

Raw Power "Fuck Authority" and Motorhead "Sweet Revenge".

― Nate Ernst, Thursday, 2 November 2000 01:00 (twenty-five years ago)

two weeks pass...

The Dum Dums! The Dum Dums are great! All their songs are about being on the DOLE, quitting shit JOBS and a few about GURLS too. But mostly about the businessman, and the system who want you to sell your brains to a factory, man! Oh the system! Smash it, I say! They don't like work. I'd say neither do I, but I had a better time in full time employment in Preston this summer than I did in a whole miserable year in the South as a skiving student. How dreadful! Perhaps my personality is more akin to the Japanese workerbee syndrome than previously thought...

― Starry, Tuesday, 21 November 2000 01:00 (twenty-five years ago)

In case anyone's interested, what I've been listening to in my shiny NEW JOB.

Blur - Best Of Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro Guns N Roses - Appetite For Destruction Daft Punk - One More Time CDS Magazine - Best Of Piano Magic - Artists Rifles Various Artists - The Hit Factory: The Best Of Pete Waterman

That's all I can currently think of. What a pointless post. See you all next week, eh.

― Tom, Wednesday, 22 November 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two weeks pass...

What about Bobby Conn's "You aint ever gonna get ahead by giving head to the man"?

― Michael Bourke, Thursday, 7 December 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

Here's a song for quitting, or for when you still have to go every day.

"In the Morning" by Built to Spill:

in the morning / feeling halfright / if it was more than just 1 day / i'd feel alright / today is flat beneath the weight of next day, next day, next day, next day / in the morning / feeling halfright / ignore my condition / just an isolated incident in the morning / feeling halfright / appearing normal / another isolated incident when my mind's uncertain my body decides / what it will do to get through the hell of the night / as I trip on the ocean that leads through your eyes / well my eyes can't wait til they finally see through you / when I get this feeling like I'm gonna start I just have to stop

― ben grad, Wednesday, 31 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Summertime Blues," maybe. Take The Who _Live At Leeds_ version, of course.

― Mark Richardson, Thursday, 1 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Socialized Death Sentence' by Dystopia is the ultimate my-job-sucks song

― Chris G, Thursday, 1 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two weeks pass...

Did nobody mention "Take This Job & Shove It" by Johnny Paycheck , or did i skim-read this too fast? it's kind of a sad one, 'cause he's going "if I had the nerve to say...", but he doesn't. The Ramones song that has those lines "I don't like Burger King/etc etc etc" is "I'm Against It" not "I Wanted Everything" . Oh yeah , also : "Lost My Job" - Alex Chilton, "Quit My Job" by Bobby Marchan, "Seventeen" (aka "Lazy Sod") - Sex Pistols.....

― Duane Zarakov, Tuesday, 20 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't believe I actually missed this thread!

See, I've just done it as well! I've quit my dayjob! Hooray!

Because I work (not for long) in Advertising, I'm listening to "Painter Man" by The Creation over and over again until the head of the "Creative" Department comes over and tells me to stop.

Here is where the money lay, classic art has had its day! Painter man, painter man, who would be a painter man?

― kate stclaire, Tuesday, 27 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

"Too Long" by Daft Punk. It's the only track on any of the MDs in my bag I've yet to hear, and, so, after telling my newly-ex colleagues precisely what I think of them in the pub at lunchtime, it'll be the soundtrack to my last ever WAGN trip south from Welwyn.

And it *is* an appropriate title.

(I don't think I'll be posting in here for a while either. Ta-ta.)

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 5 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My resignation came into effect yesterday - The Avalanches-'Since I Left You' came on the radio (THANX JO !) soon-after which added to my bliss.

― Geordie Racer, Saturday, 14 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Strangely enough I was imagining my one surviving grandparent possibly hearing "Since I Left You" yesterday. It was played on Radio 2 within three hours of Vera Lynn. Another welcome nail in Major's cultural coffin.

― Robin Carmody, Saturday, 14 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Slackmotherfucker by Superchunk

― JM, Saturday, 14 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No one seems to have mentioned 'Draining The Pool For You' by the Go Betweens. Is that too obvious?

― Nick, Sunday, 15 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two weeks pass...

By some odd coincidence, when I got unofficial word that I was getting a job offer beyond my wildest dreams and I was getting ready to tell my current boss, I was playing "I Wanna Fuck You In The Ass" by The Outhere Brothers on my headphones.

Karma works!

― Dan Perry, Monday, 30 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

Listen to "Knowledge" by Operation Ivy... It will help get anger out of your system.... Trust me/

― Jamin Jay, Friday, 1 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nobody's mentioned "Wham! Rap" yet!!!

― tarden, Friday, 1 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Does drug-dealing count as a job? "Life in the Fast Lane", in which the Geto Boys get out while the getting's good.

― tarden, Friday, 1 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Day Job" by Mountain Brothers. Sorry I'm late.

― larms, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two years pass...

Back by popular demand: thread number 1?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 12:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Damnit, Ned beat me to "Pumpin' 4 the Man" by 3+ years!

In that case, may I suggest Beck's "Soul Suckin' Jerk"? I listened to this once drunk as piss after quitting a soul-destroying dishwashing job and I swear every one of my blood vessels sang along in joy.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Modest Mouse, "Custom Concern": "gotta go to work, gotta go to work, gotta have a job..." before the Nissan ad, of course

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 18:42 (twenty-two years ago)

"Quit Your Job", Chixdiggit!. One of the best 25-second songs ever.

― Nick Mirov (nick), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 21:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Damnit, Ned beat me to "Pumpin' 4 the Man" by 3+ years!

It has power, that song. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

Chixdiggit's concise and to-the-point "Quit Your Job"
Lower East Side Stitches' had a good anti-job rager "I'm Not Working For You"
Freedom Fighters' "C.E.O." probably tops my recommendations.

― Joshua Davis (josh_anomaly), Sunday, 23 November 2003 05:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Blotto: "I Quit" AND their classic "I Wanna Be a Lifeguard" (about dreams of quitting a job selling shoes)

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Sunday, 23 November 2003 06:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Lucksmiths-"Edward Sandwich Hands"
Pernice Brothers-"Monkey Suit"

― Colin Beckett (Colin Beckett), Sunday, 23 November 2003 06:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Howsabout The Smiths' "Frankly, Mr. Shankly"?

― turkey (turkey), Sunday, 23 November 2003 10:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe more of a song to inspire you to quit your job, but hey. Quasi's 'The Happy Prole' has kept me going through the last couple of months. "You need the money, so you got to play it dumb/ But if you play it long enough, that's just what you become"

Quasi are geniuses.

― Kate Jane Connolly (fixitgirl), Sunday, 23 November 2003 14:11 (twenty-one years ago)

"I'm going to Spain" by the fall or Steve Bent.

― jed (jed_e_3), Sunday, 23 November 2003 14:23 (twenty-one years ago)

galaxie 500's crazy. for the lines "so quit your job / because it makes you crazy". sorry, but that's all i can remember of it right now

― trimmtrab, Sunday, 23 November 2003 15:31 (twenty-one years ago)

the Verve always made me want to quit my job.... pretty much any song.

― mandinina (mandinina), Sunday, 23 November 2003 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"Hate my Job" by Butthole Surfers off of _Cottage Cheese from the Lips of Death_ comp. Play it as you leave.

― Beta (abeta), Sunday, 23 November 2003 16:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 68 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Buzzcocks' Breakdown, "Better give up the job before it gives up me"

― Dr X O'Skeleton, Monday, 26 August 2013 20:59 (twelve years ago)

I associate the Streets' "Lock the Locks" (title?) with leaving a job.

― djh, Monday, 26 August 2013 21:34 (twelve years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmCrU_RjoZg

― Jazzbo, Wednesday, 28 August 2013 12:22 (twelve years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zug2QDB_AUI

― john. a resident of chicago., Wednesday, 28 August 2013 12:25 (twelve years ago)

Dirty Rotten Imbeciles - Money Stinks

"I'm staying home today...and I'm not going back to work!"

― how's life, Wednesday, 28 August 2013 12:52 (twelve years ago)

Is 'The Short-cut Way to Saturday' by Yeah Yeah Noh about quitting your job? Or fantasies of quitting your job?

on the wall the bricks are hours, I just crossed off another day
tomorrow, we say, we'll stop counting, then tomorrow we say the same again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdwAoqaGRyc

― platonic beanie (Eight Model Play), Wednesday, 28 August 2013 21:33 (twelve years ago)

Unbelievable that "Maggie's Farm" hasn't been mentioned.

― bodacious ignoramus, Friday, 30 August 2013 20:48 (twelve years ago)

one year passes...

happy belated my sweet

― mattresslessness, Tuesday, 28 October 2014 03:16 (eleven years ago)

Kevin Ayers, "Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes"

― ... and a Martin Parr photo essay (Tom D.), Tuesday, 28 October 2014 15:52 (eleven years ago)

nine months pass...

― Tom (Groke), Saturday, August 26, 2000 1:00 AM (15 years ago)

FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU-

― scarlett bohansson (unregistered), Wednesday, 26 August 2015 23:13 (ten years ago)

(happy birthday, ILM)

― scarlett bohansson (unregistered), Wednesday, 26 August 2015 23:13 (ten years ago)

<3 u ILM, happy birthday (belated)

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, 27 August 2015 05:57 (ten years ago)

take this job and shove it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPrSVkTRb24

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 27 August 2015 06:56 (ten years ago)

Oops seems it was mentioned 14 years ago. Still the best song about quitting your job.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 27 August 2015 06:57 (ten years ago)

Ugh, 15 was the worst of the angsty teenage years for me. Here's to ILX spending the next year hanging out in the basement, moping around and listening to Psychocandy.

― EDB, Thursday, 27 August 2015 16:37 (ten years ago)

I was 20 years old when I first posted in this thread. Mind blown.

― Jeff, Thursday, 27 August 2015 17:01 (ten years ago)

I was 17 ;_;

― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Thursday, 27 August 2015 17:12 (ten years ago)

Butthole Surfers OTM

happy birthday!

― sleeve, Thursday, 27 August 2015 17:57 (ten years ago)

https://www.jpc.de/image/w600/front/0/7330169666926.jpg

time to listen to this album that i have had hidden away for years then ?

― mark e, Thursday, 27 August 2015 18:32 (ten years ago)

arse .. crappy website stamp overlay

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510btZ5ZZAL._SX300_.jpg

― mark e, Thursday, 27 August 2015 18:32 (ten years ago)

Beck's finest hour ("Mexico") is a job-quitting rob-the-till-when-you-go song.

― ... (Eazy), Thursday, 27 August 2015 18:35 (ten years ago)

"Candy," one of my favorite songs by The Men, which starts with the line "I just quit my job now I can stay out all night long"

― Ys Man a.k.a. Have One on G (geoffreyess), Thursday, 27 August 2015 23:29 (ten years ago)

I had this song stuck in my head today, now I know why!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhpb_-QGPQ0

― List of people who are ready for woe and how we know this (seandalai), Friday, 28 August 2015 00:42 (ten years ago)

two years pass...

(seventeen years ago)

― Erotic Wolf (crüt), Friday, 22 September 2017 04:33 (eight years ago)

one year passes...

So was this the first thread on ILM?

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Saturday, 27 April 2019 22:37 (six years ago)

Pretty sure I posted this upthread but it's not showing up.

The Statics - "I Quit"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zug2QDB_AUI

― john. a resident of evanston. (john. a resident of chicago.), Saturday, 27 April 2019 23:48 (six years ago)

two months pass...

Aww ned that’s pretty cool

― calstars, Friday, 26 July 2019 23:56 (six years ago)

I'd like to say I was OTM in this thread

― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 27 July 2019 00:11 (six years ago)

"Brilliant Pizza" is an interesting word combo.

― frustration and wonky passion (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 27 July 2019 00:30 (six years ago)

I stand by it

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 27 July 2019 03:10 (six years ago)

As you should. It's amazing!

― frustration and wonky passion (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 27 July 2019 03:17 (six years ago)

one year passes...

Damn, ILX turned 20 last month and I didn’t even notice.

― Mr. Snrub, Friday, 18 September 2020 20:03 (five years ago)

it's all CDRs and mp3 folders these days.

it's amazing that 20 years later this is still as relevant

― rip van wanko, Friday, 18 September 2020 20:08 (five years ago)

Damn, ILX turned 20 last month and I didn’t even notice.

how was there no thread about this?

― calstars, Friday, 18 September 2020 21:15 (five years ago)

https://i.imgur.com/bKJoHqQ.jpg

― rip van wanko, Friday, 18 September 2020 21:22 (five years ago)

https://i.imgur.com/zMNGEB9.jpg

― rip van wanko, Friday, 18 September 2020 21:24 (five years ago)

Suede’s « By The Sea » :
« So we sold the car and quit the job
and shook some hands and wiped the make-up right off,
And we said our good-byes to the bank
left Seven Sisters for a room in a seaside shack,
And when I start my new life I won't touch the ground... »

― AlXTC from Paris, Friday, 18 September 2020 21:26 (five years ago)

the similarities between this photo and the one with mum-in-green are REALLY freaking me out

https://i.imgur.com/OjjoDYt.jpg

― rip van wanko, Friday, 18 September 2020 21:28 (five years ago)

one day the axe just fell

left a good job in the city

― rip van wanko, Friday, 18 September 2020 21:48 (five years ago)

"the axe just fell" isn't quitting!

― Scam Likely (morrisp), Friday, 18 September 2020 21:57 (five years ago)

I think it means “the last straw” etc

― calstars, Saturday, 19 September 2020 00:08 (five years ago)

To get the axe? It means you’re fired

― Scam Likely (morrisp), Saturday, 19 September 2020 00:27 (five years ago)

He "didn't like it all that much" so he was probably giving every reason to be fired, but still different from quitting

― rip van wanko, Saturday, 19 September 2020 00:35 (five years ago)

consufed

― calstars, Saturday, 19 September 2020 00:37 (five years ago)

Matt DC did bring it up on the second ever ILX thread (which people claim was the first) a few days after the anniverary.

'Missing the 20 year anniversary' and 'Posting about it on the wrong thread' are both extremely on brand for ILX.

― Grebo Jones (Branwell with an N), Saturday, 19 September 2020 07:39 (five years ago)

four years pass...

Happy 25th, ILX!!!!!

(for those who don't know, this was the very first ILM thread)

― Mr. Snrub, Wednesday, 27 August 2025 23:15 (two months ago)

congratulations ILM

― Minty Gum (Latham Green), Friday, 29 August 2025 17:53 (two months ago)

Somebody calling “Take this job and shove it” a Dead Kennedys song, ilx was already at its peak.

― Dumpy's Rusty Nuts Gimmick Poster (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 29 August 2025 18:11 (two months ago)

Everything was gravy after that. We invented AI.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 29 August 2025 20:27 (two months ago)

damn ilx is a grown they them now

― she freaks, she speaks (map), Friday, 29 August 2025 20:41 (two months ago)

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