Songs about work/containing scenes of work

the who - "bell boy"
the small faces - "song of a baker"

Livin' on a Prayer

"Right Said Fred", "The Hole in the Ground" - Bernard Cribbins
"Cables" - Big Black
"I'm in Love with a Stripper" - T-Pain

Bobby Bare - Detroit City (by day i make the cars/ by night i make the bars)
Johnny Paycheck -Take this Job and Shove it (mise en scene, at least)

also, all of Dolly Parton's 9-5 LP more or less - title song, Dark as a Dungeon, Deportees, Detroit City - there's more but can't remember ATM)

Pickin' Time.
Must be much more Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash - Busted

Pollo Asado, Pumpin' 4 the Man - Ween
Candygirl - Frakie Vali

...countless railroad songs, miner songs - see Woody Guthrie
...endless field holler's and work songs come to mind also.

"Found a Job" - Talking Heads
"Slack Motherf%^&er" - Superchunk

"Punk Rock Girl" - Dead Milkman

asshole customers! mojo nixon suxx anyway get some taste.

"Factory Belt" - Uncle Tupelo
"Cleaning Windows" - Van Morrison
"Rocket Man" - Elton John

otm christoff. Plus thousands of truck driving songs. The Rig Rock Deluxe comp from late 90s was loaded with great truck driving songs.

kate bush "this woman's work"
jefferson airplane "the farm" (i think that's the title?)
"SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY"

Container Drivers
English Scheme
Fit and Working Again
...and probably loads more Fall songs

more truck driving: "The Spy In The Cab" by Bauhaus, specifically about tachographs. which is probably the oddest song subject in the world, ever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachograph

Hidden in the dashboard
The unseen mechanized eye
Under surveillance
The road is full of cats eyes
It's sick function to pry
The spy in the cab

Coldly observing- callously reserving
A drivers time
Automated autonomy
Playing on his mind
The spy in the cab

> I'd love to hear from anyone who knows another "looked for a job, couldn't find one" song . . .

er, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now?

oh, wait 'and then i found a job'. scratch that.

> I'd love to hear from anyone who knows another "looked for a job, couldn't find one" song . . .

JJ Cale - Unemployment
The Chills - Doldrums

I'd love to hear from anyone who knows another "looked for a job, couldn't find one" song

bruce springsteen, "johnny 99"
bruce springsteen, "atlantic city"
bruce springsteen, "born in the usa"
probably lots of other springsteen songs

Cuz, that's great. As a Springsteen fan, all three of the songs you name appear to be about something else altogether, but in the first two unemployment is mentioned as a background fact. And now that I think about it, for the first time ever, unemployment really is exactly what Born In the USA is about. Everyone talks about the betrayal of Vietnam Vets as though that were the "topic". But what is that betrayal? Unemployment.

Thinking about it, 'Highway Patrolman' also tells its story, at least partially partially, through employment history

"Hard Workin' Man", the Captain and Ry Cooder doing a Jack Nitzsche song, from Blue Collar.

in the first two unemployment is mentioned as a background fact

not only a background fact. in both songs, unemployment (and subsequent debt) is the event that triggers the tragedy! that was one of springsteen's great themes, especially in the reagan era.

the event that triggers the tragedy

You can't really say that in Atlantic City, because he apparently leaves a job on his own steam first:

Well I got a job and tried to put my money away
But I got debts that no honest man can pay
So I drew what I had from the Central Trust
And I bought us two tickets on that Coast City bus

This doesn't make the economic tragedy less the point, just means it's only partially about unemployment.

But Johnny 99 you are right.

Kenny

true. but. here's what happens next in atlantic city:

Now I been lookin' for a job but it's hard to find
Down here it's just winners and losers and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line
Well I'm tired of comin' out on the losin' end
So honey last night I met this guy and I'm gonna do a little favor for him

but totally true, kenny, in the sense that springsteen's great theme of that era wasn't joblessness so much as it was about the economic struggles and hardships of the everyday workingman.

Rose Royce, "Car Wash"
Springsteen again, "Downbound Train" (whose narrator ALSO works at a car wash)

Hmmm.. Does stuff such as "Work Your Body", "Let's Work" and "Work It" count? ;)

Particularly when, unlike me, the general public seems to prefer their later stuff, not included on that album.

"I'd love to hear from anyone who knows another "looked for a job, couldn't find one" song . . ."

Gary U.S. Bonds: "Out of Work," another Springsteen-written song.

Day in the Life of course! Or is that too obvious?

Hmm. My last comment was meant for an Eagles thread.

Minus 5 (w/Wilco)-"Dear Employer (The Reason I Quit)"

I feel like there's a surprisingly large number of twee tracks along these lines, but I can't find any online lyrics to refresh my memory -- Nothing Painted Blue's "Swivelchair?" The Vehicle Flips' "Oh Tedium?"

Belle and Sebastian-"Step Into My Office Baby", "Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It",

Work - lou reed/john cale (songs for drella)

freakwater, "the waitress song"

Beck - Soul Suckin' Jerk

lots of songs

but perhaps the best example i can think of is tom wait's 'i can't wait to get off work'.

Everyone is embarrassed to put 'workin' for the weekend' by Loverboy - I'll oblige ...

Modern Lovers' "Government Center"

'Sixteen Tons' owns this thread.
also dan reeder - work song.

Can't believe no-one's mentioned Steelworker by Big Black.

Everyone is embarrassed to put 'workin' for the weekend' by Loverboy - I'll oblige

Actually Workin' for the Weekend is exactly what I had in mind when I said, in the question at the top of this thread "not work in general, or partying after work, but specific work situations." Of course rock and roll always poses itself as being something you do after work. Actually saying something real about work in a rock song is harder.

Monty Python-"The Lumberjack Song"

Fountains of Wayne-"Bright Future In Sales", "Hackensack"

Stan Ridgway "I Wanna Be A Boss"
Bob Seger "Makin' Thunderbirds"

"The Magnificent Seven" by The Clash

Ring! ring! its 7:00 a.m.!
Move yself to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and you bankers, too
Must get up an learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet
A.m., the f.m. the p.m. too
Churning out that boogaloo
Gets you up and gets you out
But how long can you keep it up?
Gimme honda, gimme sony
So cheap and real phony
Hong kong dollars and indian cents
English pounds and eskimo pence

You lot! what?
Dont stop! give it all you got!
You lot! what?
Dont stop! yeah!

Working for a rise, better my station
Take my baby to sophistication
Shes seen the ads, she thinks its nice
Better work hard - I seen the price
Never mind that its time for the bus
We got to work - an youre one of us
Clocks go slow in a place of work
Minutes drag and the hours jerk

When can I tell em wot I do?
In a second, maaan...oright chuck!

Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
Its our profit, its his loss
But anyway lunch bells ring
Take one hour and do your thanng!
Cheeesboiger!

What do we have for entertainment?
Cops kickin gypsies on the pavement
Now the news - snap to attention!
The lunar landing of the dentist convention
Italian mobster shoots a lobster
Seafood restaurant gets out of hand
A car in the fridge
Or a fridge in the car?
Like cowboys do - in t.v. land

You lot! what? dont stop. huh?

So get back to work an sweat some more
The sun will sink an well get out the door
Its no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
Youre frettin, youre sweatin
But did you notice you aint gettin?
Dont you ever stop long enough to start?
To take your car outta that gear
Dont you ever stop long enough to start?
To get your car outta that gear
Karlo marx and fredrich engels
Came to the checkout at the 7-11
Marx was skint - but he had sense
Engels lent him the necessary pence

What have we got? yeh-o, magnificence!!

Luther king and mahatma gandhi
Went to the park to check on the game
But they was murdered by the other team
Who went on to win 50-nil
You can be true, you can be false
You be given the same reward
Socrates and milhous nixon
Both went the same way - through the kitchen
Plato the greek or rin tin tin
Whos more famous to the billion millions?
News flash: vacuum cleaner sucks up budgie
Oooohh...bub-bye

Magnificence!!

Fucking long, innit?

Dionne Warwick-"I Say A Little Prayer"

Billy Joel - "Movin' Out" ("Anthony works in a grocery store . . .")

Reviving this because I just re- bought Darkness at the Edge of Town; I'd forgotten quite how amazing Factory is. It's odd how the notion persists that Bruce is a crazy romantic, too in love with urban imagery.....
He hasn't been that since Born to Run; it's like calling Dylan a protest singer. The Darkness/River/ Nebraska trio contain some of the darkest songs in the canon; real terror in there, compared to which someone like Nick Cave is second rate Hammer horror.

Second thought - woudn't have been groovy if Springsteen had made an album with the Band? or if the Band had done a record of his songs without him? can you hear Levon sing 'The River' or Rick Danko do Highway Patrolman?

Levon did cover "Atlantic City" during the Band's 90s reunion.

A different and related question . . . Livin' on A Prayer not only mentions work, but mentions, in the first lines, being in a union (not to mention being on strike).

Leaving aside Billy Bragg's There Is Power In A Union (i.e. preaching songs rather then work songs) (not that I have any problem with Billy Bragg's politics, which are better then his music), any other songs about rank and file union membership? Going on strike?

neil young, "union man"

pulp, "last day of the miners' strike"

There was Strawbs anti-union 'Part of the Union' ....
Thanks by the way for the tip off about Levon Helms versh of Atlantic City

Black Flag - Machine

Bread And Roses
L'Internationale
Solidarity Forever
General Strike - DOA
Union Sundown - Bob Dylan

The Mekons - Abernant 84/85