Working Tunes

 

Let’s start off March with some of the soundtrack of our lives, songs about work and working. Here are a few tunes that come to mind for me. Are some of these songs that come to mind for you as well, and do you have other tunes in your mental soundtrack?

Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons” is the first song that comes to my mind. It is a working man’s lament at a rigged system, while also boasting of great physical prowess, a man among men.

I grew up in the 1970s, my first concert was with our whole family going to see the Carpenters, so it should surprise no one that Jim Croce, with his blue collar folksy sound, would be next in my soundtrack. You know, “those steadily depressing, low-down mind-messing, working at the car wash blues.”

From there, we go uptempo, with a beat that gets us hustling towards the office or factory, with Dolly Parton’s “Working Nine to Five:”

About the same time, Huey Lewis and the News recorded a similarly uptempo tune. Notice that there are some of the same elements of workers’ lament about unfair imbalance of power and exploitation, but it is delivered in such a peppy manner that your mind latches onto “working for a living, working!”

Disco was nearing the end of its run as the Queen of Disco, Donna Summers recorded a song about an older waitress at a diner: “She Works Hard for the Money (so you’d better treat her right).”

Then there is that famous novelty tune, a country and western song recorded by Johnny Paycheck. The song was played on the radio on Friday afternoons and got plenty of jukebox play, with crowd participation at times, belting out the tag line “take this job and shove it!”

On the other hand, at the same time as Dolly Parton’s “Nine to Five” Sheena Easton was singing “9 to 5 (Morning Train)” in which she celebrated the connection between work and love. “My baby takes the morning train” while she keeps their little home and anticipates her man coming home at the end of the work day.

I’ll leave you with a song about workers working the Man, Johnny Cash’s irrepressible toe tapping tune “One Piece at a Time:”

I look forward to hearing your favorite work or working tunes in the comments.

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  1. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    tigerlily (View Comment):
    “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” which I imagine is the first song about work I learned.

    A classic . . .

    “Erie Canal” is another.

    • #61
  2. tigerlily Member
    tigerlily
    @tigerlily

    Stad (View Comment):

    tigerlily (View Comment):
    “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” which I imagine is the first song about work I learned.

    A classic . . .

    “Erie Canal” is another.

    Good one!

    • #62
  3. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    MarciN (View Comment):

    A good song about work is “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” I love the lines “When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck, sayin’ ‘Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya.’ At seven p.m. an old hatchway caved in, he said, ‘Fellas, it’s been good to know ya.”

    My favorite song about work is Billy Joel’s “The Downeaster Alexa.

    And my favorite song to work to is “I’m Walkin’ on Sunshine.”

    Now I’ll have Katrina and the Waves in my head all day.

    • #63
  4. colleenb Member
    colleenb
    @colleenb

    tigerlily (View Comment):

    Here’s a couple-three. First Dave Dudley “Six Days on the Road.”

     

    Next, Chuck Berry “Too Much Monkey Business.”

     

    Dire Straits “Money for Nothing.”

    Never seen Dave Dudley. I only knew the Livingston Taylor version. Thanks.

    • #64
  5. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    I love to play the video game Warframe, which has a pretty decent soundtrack.  For the Fortuna update, they decided to do something different… an old school working song.

    “We all lift together” became quite popular, even an unofficial motto for the largely cooperative player base. 

    • #65
  6. EHerring Coolidge
    EHerring
    @EHerring

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqtO88ZlBQ

    why not

    • #66
  7. John Stanley Coolidge
    John Stanley
    @JohnStanley

    This one was so good Volkswagen used it in a commercial.

    https://youtu.be/1WGFRzcksxA

     

     

    • #67
  8. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Goin’ to Work by Judy Rodman

    • #68
  9. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Goin’ to Work by Judy Rodman

    Going for the deep country cuts. Thanks.

    • #69
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