Top Songs about Work (and how Crappy it is!) Happy Labor Day Long Weekend
August 29, 2008 | Lists
Labor Day is a merciful respite from the 50-hour grind.
Working Class Hero might be the working man anthem, but this is the other side of the slammed door equivalent.Choice anti-work lyrics:
I’ve been workin’ in this factory
From now on fifteen years
All this time I watched my woman
Drowning in a pool of tears
And I’ve seen a lot of good folk die
Who had a lot of bills to pay
I’d give the shirt right off of my back
If I had the nerve to say
2. Takin’ Care of Business, Bachman Turner Overdrive. Along with the Hockey Night in Canada theme song, Four Strong Winds and Rockin’ in the Free World, it’s a song that would be a welcome replacement to our anemic Oh Canada National Anthem (for our list of The Most Violent National Anthems in the World, and you can be rest assured Canada is not on there, click here)
Choice anti-work lyrics:
And if your train’s on time
You can get to work by nine
And start your slaving job to get your pay
3. Workin’ in a Coal mine, Lee Dorsey. Luckily, the closest thing these days to mining is living in a crummy basement apartment. Mining is mostly a thing of the past, welcome relief and not only for the canaries.
Choice anti-work lyrics (uh, the title and everything else)
4. I Never Picked Cotton Johnny Cash. The Man in Black’s cautionary tale, before he started cashing real money endorsing ATMs.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
When I was just a baby, too little for a cotton sack…
I played in the dirt
While the others worked, ’til they couldn’t straighten up their backs
I made myself a promise, when I was big enough to run
That I’d never stay a single day In that Oklahoma sun
5. Maggie’s Farm Bob Dylan. While this might well have represented Dylan severing ties with the folk world, an equally dismal place is the working one.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more.
Well, he hands you a nickel,
He hands you a dime,
He asks you with a grin
If you’re havin’ a good time
6. Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now The Smiths. The Smiths were pretty much always miserable, but they nail vocational misery with this.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But heaven knows I’m miserable now
I was looking for a job, and then i found a job
And heaven knows I’m miserable now
7. Don’t Talk to Me About Work Lou Reed. Cheery Lou’s Bukowski-esque take on the 9-5 grind. A temperamental interview subject, title could easily be ‘Don’t Talk to Me About Anything’.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
How many dollars, how many sales
How many liars, how many tales
How many insults must you take in this one life
8. I Can’t Wait to Get off Work / Jersey Girl Tom Waits. Hard to narrow it down to two from his song catalog, but we’re sure Waits completists will weigh in. It’s a tonne of work trying to please everybody.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
And I can’t wait to get off work
and see my baby
she said she’d leave the porch lite
on for me
I’m disheveled I’m disdainful
and I’m distracted and it’s painful
but this job sweeping up here is
is gainfully employing me tonight
I see you on the street and you look so tired
I know that job you got leaves you so uninspired
9. Step Into My Office Baby, Belle & Sebastian. Being in bed by 9 on the FM side, is a terrible predicament.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
I’m a slave to work
I’m only living when I walk amongst the office staff
And catch up with the office wag
I’ll be in bed by nine
My curtains drawn
My thoughts composed
I get to work on time
10. Summertime Blues Eddie Cochran. Life lesson learned. After being forcibly shunted off to summer camp and forced to make crappy elbow macaroni art, you become old enough to join the workforce, and come face to face with your worst fear: the deep fryer.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
Every time I call my baby try to get a date
my boss says ‘No dice, Son, you gotta work late’
Sometimes I wonder what I’m a gonna do
but there ain’t no cure for the Summertime Blues.
11. Bright Future in Sales Fountains of Wayne. “As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone want to see second prize? Second prize’s a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”
Glengarry Glen Ross
Choice anti-work Lyrics:
I gotta do some quick reading
For the big meeting
But my head is spinning
And I can’t quite open my eyes
12. Workin’ Man Rush. The promise of a better tomorrow, unfulfilled. How sad. Remedy: Air drumming to Tom Sawyer
Choice anti-work lyrics:
It seems to me I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that’s why they call me
They call me the workin’ man
13. Bang on the Drum Todd Rundgren. “I pound on the drum like it’s my boss’ head”.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
Every day when I get home from work
I feel so frustrated
The boss is a jerk
And I get my sticks and go out to the shed
And I pound on that drum like it was the boss’ head
14. Slave to the Wage, Placebo. A modern-day precursor to Take this Job and Shove It
Choice anti-work Lyrics:
Run away from all your boredom
Run away from all your whoredom and wave
Your worries and cares ‘Goodbye’
15. Welcome to the Working Week Elvis Costello. 
Words of wisdom from a guy who gets Diana Krall to sing him to sleep every night, without having to put on her CDs.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
Welcome to the workin’ week.
Oh I know it don’t thrill you, I hope it don’t kill you.
Welcome to the workin’ week.
You gotta do it till you’re through it so you better get to it.
16. Jacqueline Franz Ferdinand. Donna Summer may work hard for the money, for all we know, but it’s better not to.
Choice anti-work Lyrics:
It’s always better on holiday
So much better on holiday
That’s why we only work when
We need the money
17. It’s Not My place in a 9-5 World Ramones. Amen, ‘brothers’.
Choice anti-work Lyrics: Everything.
18. Sixteen Tons Tennessee Ernie Ford (written by Merle Travis). ‘Job 1′ quality from Ford. Ford is dead, and so is the automaker namesake so you won’t be whistling this one on the assembly line.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
19. Big Boss Man Jimmy Reed. One of numerous Jimmy songs covered by fat, goateed white guys in fedoras and bowling shirts.
Choice anti-work lyrics:
Got me working, boss man, working ’round the clock
I want me a drink of water, but you won’t let Jimmy stop
20. Factory Bruce Springsteen. From big boss man to The Boss people like.
Choice anti-work Lyrics:
End of the day, factory whistle cries,
Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes.
And you just better believe, boy,
somebody’s gonna get hurt tonight
The Shark Guys are the authors of Tastes Like Human: The Shark Guys’ Book of Bitingly Funny Lists (Available at all major retailers). Also, please see our list of the Top 10 Most Dangerous Jobs.
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fabulous list!! :)
Great list. Nice touch with the 'Jersey Girl' mention ;)
How is Spaceship by Kanye West not on here? Downright criminal!
Why is Step Into My Office, Baby on here? That song is about sex. He spends the whole song talking about how he’s trying to please her. “I’ve got to change my ways/dress for business everyday/sharp suit and a kipper tie/big arrow pointing to my fly.”
You forgot 9 to 5 Dolly Parton
What? No “”9-5″ by Dolly Parton?? C’mon!!
What about Huey Lewis “Working for a Living”
“I get my check on friday, but its already spent…working for a living (workin) Working for a living (working!) Working for a living, Living and a working..I’m taking what their given cause I’m working for a living”.
I know that this is a rock based list, but it should really include “Shove this J-O-B” by Canibus and Biz Markie. It is from the office space soundtrack and is really quite funny. Although it is a rap song, it is not a hardcore rap song so all listeners should be able to appreciate its hilarity.
What, no love for Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5″.
You forgot Patti Smith’s!
Piss Factory
Sixteen and time to pay off
I got this job in a piss factory inspecting pipe
Forty hours thirty-six dollars a week
But it’s a paycheck, Jack.
It’s so hot in here, hot like Sahara
You could faint in the heat
But these bitches are just too lame to understand
Too goddamned grateful to get this job
To know they’re getting screwed up the ass
All these women they got no teeth or gum or cranium
And the way they suck hot sausage
But me well I wasn’t sayin’ too much neither
I was moral school girl hard-working asshole
I figured I was speedo motorcycle
I had to earn my dough, had to earn my dough
But no you gotta, you gotta [relate, babe,]
You gotta find the rhythm within
Floor boss slides up to me and he says
“Hey sister, you just movin’ too fast,
You screwin’ up the quota,
You doin’ your piece work too fast,
Now you get off your mustang sally
You ain’t goin’ nowhere, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
I lay back. I get my nerve up. I take a swig of Romilar
And walk up to hot shit Dot Hook and I say
“Hey, hey sister it don’t matter whether I do labor fast or slow,
There’s always more labor after.”
She’s real Catholic, see. She fingers her cross and she says
“There’s one reason. There’s one reason.
You do it my way or I push your face in.
We knee you in the john if you don’t get off your get off your mustang Sally,
If you don’t shake it up baby.” Shake it up, baby. Twist & shout”
Oh that I could will a radio here. James Brown singing
“I Lost Someone” or the Jesters and the Paragons
And Georgie Woods the guy with the goods and Guided Missiles …
But no, I got nothin’, no diversion, no window,
Nothing here but a porthole in the plaster, in the plaster,
Where I look down, look at sweet Theresa’s convent
All those nurses, all those nuns scattin’ ’round
With their bloom hoods like cats in mourning.
Oh to me they, you know, to me they look pretty damn free down there
Down there not having crystal smooth
Not having to smooth those hands against hot steel
Not having to worry about the [inspeed] the dogma the [inspeed] of labor
They look pretty damn free down there,
And the way they smell, the way they smell
And here I gotta be up here smellin’ Dot Hook’s midwife sweat
I would rather smell the way boys smell–
Oh those schoolboys the way their legs flap under the desks in study hall
That odor rising roses and ammonia
And way their dicks droop like lilacs
Or the way they smell that forbidden acrid smell
But no I got, I got pink clammy lady in my nostril
Her against the wheel me against the wheel
Oh slow motion inspection is drivin’ me insane
In steel next to Dot Hook — oh we may look the same–
Shoulder to shoulder sweatin’ 110 degrees
But I will never faint, I will never faint
They laugh and they expect me to faint but I will never faint
I refuse to lose, I refuse to fall down
Because you see it’s the monotony that’s got to me
Every afternoon like the last one
Every afternoon like a rerun next to Dot Hook
And yeah we look the same
Both pumpin’ steel, both sweatin’
But you know she got nothin’ to hide
And I got something to hide here called desire
I got something to hide here called desire
And I will get out of here–
You know the fiery potion is just about to come
In my nose is the taste of sugar
And I got nothin’ to hide here save desire
And I’m gonna go, I’m gonna get out of here
I’m gonna get out of here, I’m gonna get on that train,
I’m gonna go on that train and go to New York City
I’m gonna be somebody, I’m gonna get on that train, go to New York City,
I’m gonna be so bad I’m gonna be a big star and I will never return,
Never return, no, never return, to burn out in this piss factory
And I will travel light.
Oh, watch me now.
Superchunk’s “Slack Motherfucker” should be on the list too!
I’m working,
But I’m not working for you!
You Slack Motherfucker!!
What about Zombie Autopilot, by Unearth?
How about “Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job”. Think it was done originally by John Thorogood and the Destoyers
While the 9 to 5 crowd, may be right, IMNSHO an even better choice would be….
The Vogues – Five O’Clock World Lyrics
Up every mornin just to keep a job
I gotta fight my way through the hustling mob
Sounds of the city poundin in my brain
While another day goes down the drain
But its a five oclock world when the whistle blows
No one owns a piece of my time
And theres a five oclock me inside my clothes
Thinkin that the world looks fine, yeah
Tradin my time for the pay I get
Livin on money that I aint made yet
Ive been goin tryin to make my way
While I live for the end of the day
Cuz its a five oclock world when the whistle blows
No one owns a piece of my time, and
Theres a long-haired girl who waits, I know
To ease my troubled mind, yeah
oh my lady, yeah
oh my lady, yeah
In the shelter of her arms everythings OK
When she talks then the world goes slippin away
And I know the reason I can still go on
When every other reason is gone,
In my five oclock world she waits for me
Nothing else matters at all
Cuz every time my baby smiles at me
I know thats its all worthwhile,
yeah oh my lady,
yeah oh my lady, yeah, fade……..
You forgot Canibus, “Take This Job and Shove It” which is the BEST anti-work anthem ever.
Yo 6 o’clock every morning you waking up yawning
To the sound of your alarm clock alarm
About an hour from now
You should be at the place of employment
Which is annoying cause it’s so boring
Your co-workers are talking too loud for you to ignore them
It affects your occupational performance
You wonder why your work load is so enormous
Because your boss just laid off three quarters of the whole office
People get depressed, they get ulcers
From the stress that the corporate environment causes
Regardless of how you ultimately wanna solve this
Seems to me like you’ve got one of four choices:
You could take a new job offer for more chips
Stick it out a little longer or forfeit
But my advice to anybody that wants to quit
It’ll feel much better if you say it like this:
[biz markie]
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Take this job, take this job, take this job and shove it
[canibus]
Yo, if your boss is a s-o-b
Tell him to s-h-o-v-e the j-o-b
Put your middle finger up slowly
Put it close enough to his face so he can examine it closely
Say i ain’t workin here no more
Who do you think you are?
Rip your apron off, throw it on the floor
Run to the door, to the payphone
Make a toll-free call
Tell your spouse what happened and where you are
So they can come and get you in the car later on
And help you search for a new 9 to 5 job
If the unemployment line ain’t that long
You can take your time printin out w-9 forms
Eventually, you’ll get on if you try hard enough
And you’ll get money if you keep punchin your time card enough
Maybe you hate it, maybe you love it
But if you hate it all you gotta do is get mad and tell the boss to
[biz markie]
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Take this job, take this job, take this job and shove it
[canibus]
Yo, some occupations are like slave gigs
The boss is favored and get placed in something spacious
While the most hated get placed in some small cubicle spaces
Or get thrown down in the basement, get your stapler confiscated
You constantly waitin for a paycheck
Twelve months passed by and you still ain’t get paid yet
Here’s a optimistic motto
If you ever late for today you could say you early for tomorrow
Most 9 to 5′s are hard
Cause the description in the job ain’t no picnic in the park
People get hired
Drink coffee to stay wired
So they don’t get tired, sleep late, and get fired
[biz markie]
You came in late, you already ate,
Nowww, you wanna take a lunch break!??!
[canibus]
Ay, yo bust it, ain’t no need to discuss it
Just take this job and shove it, right between your buttocks
[biz markie]
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Take this job, take this job, take this job and shove it
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Ah ah ah ah ahahah ah
I ain’t workin here no more
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin here no more
Ay ay ay ayee ay
I ain’t workin here no more
Canibus and the biz
It’s comin from canibus and the biz
It’s comin from canibus and the biz
From, from canibus and the biz
I’m also nominating Bangles, “Manic Monday” –
Have to catch an early train
Got to be to work by nine
And if I had an air-o-plane
I still couldn’t make it on time
‘Cause it takes me so long
Just to figure out what I’m gonna wear
Blame it on the train
But the boss is already there
Actually,Roy Clark had a hit with”I Never Picked Cotton”,not Johnny Cash.
Here’s a few more for the list:
“Branded Man”by Merle Haggard.A Real Live ExCon Singing A Song About The Trials and Tribulations of An ExCon.
“I Paid The Debt
I Owed ‘Em,
But Theyr’e still
Not satisfied.
Now I’m A
Branded Man
Out In The Cold”.
“If We Make It Through December”.Another great Merle Haggard song.
The protagonist has just gotten laid off from his job and wonders what
he’ll do to make ends meet.
“I Don’t Mean To’
Hate December,
It’s Meant To be
The Greatest Time
Of The Year.
And My Little girl
Don’t Understand,
Why Daddy Can’t
Afford No Christmas cheer.”.
Loretta Lynn’s”Coal Miner’s Daughter”.
While she loved her Daddy,she’s grateful that
she got the If You See Kay(Tell her I said’Hi’)
outa Butcher Holler ASAP!!
“Detroit City”by Bobby Bare.
Great song about a Country Boy who gave up a life
of drudgery and hard labor on a farm in the deep south
for a life of drudgery and hard labor workin’on the assembly
lines making Fords;GM’s and Chryslers instead!!
“Last Night I Went
To Sleep in
Detroit city.
And I Dreamed
About The Cotton
Fields Back Home.
I Dreamed About
My Mother.
Dear Old Papa
Sister and Brother.
I Dreamed About
The Girl
Who’s Been Waiting
For So Long.
I Want to
Go Home.
I Want To
Go Home.
Oh How I
Want To
Go Home.”.
“The Midnight Special”.
When Huddie Ledbetter-aka”Ledbelly”wrote this song
in the 20′s,there were no Prisoner’s Advocacy Groups
and/or Showbiz Types to take up your cause!!
Instead,like the song goes
“Well,You Wake Up
In The Morning
And It’s The
Same Old Thing.
Ain’t No Breakfast
On the Table
Ain’t No Dinner
In The Pan.
But You better
Not Complain Boys,
Or You’ll Get In
Trouble With The Man”.
But there was one sliver of hope!!
Seems that in the 20′s and 30′s,
The Former Southern Pacific Railroad
Ran A Nighttime Section of the
famed”Sunset Limited”Passenger Train
that ran by the Sugarland Prison Farm
in Sugarland,Texas*(*Outside of Houston)
around 12am!!
Rumor had it that if your cell faced
the tracks,the lights of the locomotive might
shine in your cell,and if it did,you’d be paroled or pardoned pretty soon!!
Or,get your wife/girlfriend/significant other go to Austin and give Governor Ferguson some
“Dead Presidents”and you’d get paroled and/or pardoned soon!!
“Yonder Comes Miss Rosie
Tell Me How do you Know.
I Can tell By The Apron
And The Dresses she Wore.
Umbrella on her Shoulder
Piece of Paper In Her Hand.
Gonna see The Governor.
Gonna free Her Man.”.
how bout this one
Descendents – This Place
This Place Sucks
I Haven’t Found A Single Thing To Call My Own
And There’S Nothing Left For Me To Do
Just Play The Game, Pretend To Do Work
No My Boss Isn’T A Jerk
It’S Just This Place
This Place Sucks
I Been Slinking Through The Halls Like An Unwashed Dog
And Everybody Treats Me Like A Criminal
Talk About Me Behind My Back
At Least I Don’t Have A Stick Up My Ass
Like The People In This Place
This Place Sucks
This Place Sucks
This Place Sucks
I Feel My Confidence Draining Away
I Feel Them Laughing At Me Everyday
I Never Thought It Would End Up This Way
Good Thing I’m Not Going To Stay
This Place Sucks
I Haven’T Found A Single Friend In Three Whole Years
Cause There’S Nobody Here But The Bible Boys
Talking About Their White Bread Politics
Gotta Leave The Room Cause You’re Making Me Sick
Gotta Leave This Place
This Place Sucks
you are all a bunch of douches. did you notice that each song listed had a few lines? why would you put up entire song lyrics? who wants to read that shit?
“Code Monkey” by Jonathan Coulton
Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code Monkey have boring meeting
With boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey very diligent
But his output stink
His code not “functional” or “elegant”
What do Code Monkey think?
Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write god damned login page himself
Code Monkey not say it out loud
Code Monkey not crazy, just proud
Awesome song right here by POWDERFINGER which is just a great band in general! Great lines in the song about work
Song: My Kind of Scene
“Tell me where im
Supposed to begin
An unhappy life working
Some kind of dead end job
For everything you thought you had
Has gone from worse to bad”
“Lean to the side
Whisper it quiet
The end is in sight to working
All night around the clock
For everything you thought you had
Has gone from worse to bad”
Great list – really appreciate. Am making a “working” cd for friend and had several of these myself. I’d maybe add Career Opportunities by The Clash, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight by Richard/Linda Thompson, Hey Julie (another Fountains of Wayne), Welcome to the Occupation by Cold War Kids, and stretch maybe REM’s Exhuming McCarthy and A Few Good Times by Fellow Travellers. Thanks.
David Cameron likes The Smiths. Shame they don’t like him LOL
It’s
I’ve been working in this factory
For nigh on to fifteen years…
Good job including this one and “Sixteen Tons.” It almost makes up for including overrated, untalented hacks like Springsteen and Dylan.
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