Songs about working

[przesyt]

'Misery Farm' by Tommy Handley

The hens won't lay, We can't make hay
We work all day and we get no pay!
We're miserable, so miserable
Down on Misery Farm


"Eat Y'self Fitter" by The Fall

Got a new job today
I'll stick the cretin
On the number-three lathe
Went down the town
To a HM club
Sign of the cross
A couple well-dressed
They looked at my coat
They looked at my hair
An Easy Rider coot
Grabbed the edge of my coat
Said: 'You're too smart for here'
I said: 'I'll see the manager'
He was the manager


And there should be a plenty of various spirituals and prison work songs

[przesyt]

'elevator operator' by the rays is all about it's title

[*]]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-cAGblRdwg[*]

[Noj]

Is Merle Travis the original "16 tons?" I thought it was Tennessee Ernie Ford.

LOL at The Police "Roxanne." The world's oldest profession!

There's always "Get A Job" by The Silhouettes.

[fearandpanic]

Is Merle Travis the original "16 tons?" I thought it was Tennessee Ernie Ford.

It's Travis's song (recorded in the late 1940s), but Ford recorded a version of it about ten years later and popularised it. Apparently it was always a controversial song, since any emphasis on the plight of workers was considered to be potentially sympathetic to socialism. It recorded the experience of Travis's family as miners (as did most of the material on his Folk Songs from the Hill LP)--his father is supposed to have provided the song's famous refrain. Here's another one from the same set, "Dark as a Dungeon": "Come and listen you fellers so young and so fine / and seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines / It will form as a habit and seep in your soul / till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal."

"Nine-Pound Hammer," which Travis also recorded, is a traditional song related to a number of similar songs with hammer themes, particularly "Take This Hammer."

"Take this hammer / and carry it to the captain / you tell him I'm goin' /
If he asks you was I runnin' / tell him I was flyin' / tell him I was flyin.'"

There are beautiful versions of that one recorded by Leadbelly and Jesse Fuller (on Jazz, Folk Songs, Spirituals & Blues), who describes it as his favourite song.

[William Hutson]

father was killed by the pinkerton men

[fearandpanic]

The Pioneers "Money Day"

i love this song for that rocksteady beat and the "yaba-da-doo-dee-ay" bit but the lyrics are about surviving the work week and making it to pay day (i think...?)

Nice one! Here's another reggae tune, this time a rootsier one, Culture's "Work On, Natty" from Harder Than the Rest (1978).

"Sometimes it's hard to get a job
When you work and get pay and walk down the streets
Gunmen want to shoot you down
People got to work in the burning sun
And when we get our pay
We just can't take home none
But by the sweat of our brows
We shall all eat bread
So work on, natty, work on."

[surfer]

Jimmy Reed, "Big Boss Man"

You got me working, boss man
Working 'round the clock
I want me a drink of water
You won't let me stop
You big boss man
Can you hear me when I call?
Oh, you ain't so big
You just tall, that's all

[Noj]

Is Merle Travis the original "16 tons?" I thought it was Tennessee Ernie Ford.

It's Travis's song (recorded in the late 1940s), but Ford recorded a version of it about ten years later and popularised it. Apparently it was always a controversial song, since any emphasis on the plight of workers was considered to be potentially sympathetic to socialism. It recorded the experience of Travis's family as miners (as did most of the material on his Folk Songs from the Hill LP)--his father is supposed to have provided the song's famous refrain. Here's another one from the same set, "Dark as a Dungeon": "Come and listen you fellers so young and so fine / and seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines / It will form as a habit and seep in your soul / till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal."

"Nine-Pound Hammer," which Travis also recorded, is a traditional song related to a number of similar songs with hammer themes, particularly "Take This Hammer."

"Take this hammer / and carry it to the captain / you tell him I'm goin' /
If he asks you was I runnin' / tell him I was flyin' / tell him I was flyin.'"

There are beautiful versions of that one recorded by Leadbelly and Jesse Fuller (on Jazz, Folk Songs, Spirituals & Blues), who describes it as his favourite song.

Thanks fearandpanic!

[Brian Olewnick]

The Roches - Mr. Sellack

[Jesse]

The Roches - Mr. Sellack

You're a 70s Fripp completist!

[bedouin]

Je ne veux pas travailler
Je ne veux pas déjeuner
Je veux seulement oublier
Et puis je fume

Pink Martini - Sympathique


-----
Most of Springsteen's "the River" is about work songs.
I wonder what people here (Americans especially) think of the boss...
I watched this yesterday and thought it was cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbxiW4Ib ... re=related

[surfer]

Uncle Tupelo, "Graveyard Shift"

Some say a land of paradise
Some say a land of pain
Well, which side are you looking from
Some people have it all, some all to gain

Well a man in a tie gonna break his twenty dollar bill
There's plenty of reasons in this world
We're no longer standing still
But I'm not saying there's nothing wrong as the day comes along

If what I see is true I could learn to believe
Can't look away
The powers that be might take it all away
Together we burn, together we burn away

There's too much time spent looking for a reason
It's the simple ones that mean the most truth
Oh, what a mess a life can be
I'm sitting here thinking of you once again

Well, time won't wait, better open the gate
Get up and start what needs to be done
It's running down, there's so much you missed
Working on that graveyard shift

[fearandpanic]

One from Johnny Guitar Watson's later funk years, "Ain't That a Bitch" (1977) (storming live performance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R-9m7UpEYA):

"I'm working forty hours, six long days
I'm highly embarrassed
Every time I get my pay
And they're working everybody
Lord, they're working poor folks to death
And when you pay your rent and your car notes
You ain't got a damn thing left
--Ain't that a bitch."

[Dan G]

Walkin' Boss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNLMZCPVyNc

[Gaendaal]

Has no-one mentioned Dolly? Maybe I missed it...

Workin' nine to five, what a way to make a living
Barely gettin' by it's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it
Nine to five, for service and devotion
You would think that I would deserve a fair promotion
Want to move ahead but the boss won't seem to let me
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me.

Not only a song about the dreary repetition of office life but also a reflection on glass ceiling economics and gender disparity in the work place.

[surfer]

Billy Joel, "Allentown"

Well we're living here in Allentown
And they're closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they're killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line.

So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron and coke,
Chromium steel.

[maRi]

There are beautiful versions of that one recorded by Leadbelly and Jesse Fuller (on Jazz, Folk Songs, Spirituals & Blues), who describes it as his favourite song.

I've heard Leadbelly introduce it as his theme work song. I'm not sure if I know any other performances, but I love his. "Pick a Bale of Cotton" is a favourite also, performed either by Leadbelly or by a group that can be heard on Black Texicans: Balladeers and Songsters of the Texas Frontier. They are a bit different, and the lyrics are for the latter:

"Jump down and turn around,
Pick a bale of cotton.
Oh, you jump down and turn around,
Pick a bale a-day!

Oh, never will I,
Pick a bale of cotton!
Oh, never will I,
Pick a bale a-day!
Ole missus tol' the massa
I could pick a bale of cotton.
Ole missus tol' the massa I could
Pick a bale a-day!

Oh, missus, give me helpin' hand,
Pick a bale of cotton,
Oh, massa, give me tiny can.
Pick a bale a-day.

Oh, how can I
Pick a bale of cotton?
Oh, how can I
Pick a bale a-day?"

[surfer]

"Take This Hammer."

"Take this hammer / and carry it to the captain / you tell him I'm goin' /
If he asks you was I runnin' / tell him I was flyin' / tell him I was flyin.'"

There are beautiful versions of that one recorded by Leadbelly and Jesse Fuller (on Jazz, Folk Songs, Spirituals & Blues), who describes it as his favourite song.

There's a nice spirited live version of this song on The Felice Brothers' Tonight At The Arizona, they dedicate it to their dad, who was a carpenter and never missed a day of work.

[Anthony R]

Grat Thread!

One of my favorites is "I Do Mind Dying" written and recorded by Detroit auto worker Joe L. Carter.

Please Mr. Foreman, slow down your assembly line.
Please Mr. Foreman, slow down your assembly line.
No, I don't mind workin', but I do mind dyin'.
Workin' twelve hours a day.
Seven long days a week,
I lie down and try to rest, but, Lord knows, I'm too tired to sleep.
Lord knows, I'm too tired to sleep.
Please, Mr. Foreman, slow down your assembly line.
I said, Lord, why don't you slow down that assembly line?
No, I don't mind workin', but I do mind dyin'

I have it on an old cassette, but it is probably most readily found as part of the soundtrack to the great, overlooked film "Finally Got the News" which documents the work of Detroit's League of Revolutionary Black Workers.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2942116180

[maRi]

"Black, Brown and White" by Big Bill Broonzy:

"This little song that I'm singin' about
People you know it's true
If you're black and gotta work for a living
This is what they will say to you

They says if you was white, should be all right
If you was brown, stick around
But as you's black, m-mm brother, git back git back git back

Me and a man was workin' side by side
This is what it meant
They was paying him a dollar an hour
And they was paying me fifty cent

They said if you was white, 't should be all right
If you was brown, could stick around
But as you black, m-mm boy, git back git back git back

I went to an employment office
Got a number 'n' I got in line
They called everybody's number
But they never did call mine

They said if you was white, should be all right
If you was brown, could stick around
But as you black, m-mm brother, git back git back git back."