Songs about working life

[NormanD]

I took the liberty of starting up this theme under a separate heading. There have been some posts already on this subject under the "Chavez Ravine" discussion - maybe they can be moved here?

Back to the topic: I'd originally said How many songs have been written about industrial life? I can think of Warren Zevon's "The Factory", and half-memories of some British folk songs, but not much else, and a few answers came back. I don't know the Springsteen or Iggy Pop songs, and maybe Merle Haggard might have done a few, or other country artists for that matter. But they still seem thin on the ground.

And do we know of any songs from, for example, India, Africa, Southern America or China - all with massive industrial complexes - that talk about people's working lives?

Norman

[Ted]

Please Mr Foreman (Slow down your assembly line) - Joe L. Carter mid 60s blues that was a big hit in Detroit (surprise) and just about nowhere else.

Although its not music has anyone else read any of Fred Voss's poetry about working as a machinist in west coast aircraft factories?

There are plenty of songs about working life. There just aren't many celebrating what a fantastic time people have at at work.

Cheers
TW

[NormanD]

No, I've not read Fred Voss' poems, Ted, I'd really like to. Can you post the details, please?

And on exactly the same subject, a wonderful book is "Detroit: I Do Mind Dying" by Dan Georgakas & Marvin Surkin. It's about how Detroit workers, starting from the car plants, organised themselves in the 60's and 70's. The activities of these Black workers' organisations have been generally overlooked in the other accounts that tend to concentrate on the SNCC and Black Panthers. It's a very inspiring account of how people organised against racism and work exploitation. The title of this book is from the 1965 blues by Joe L. Carter you mention, recorded when he was a line worker at Ford Rouge:
Please, Mr. Foreman, slow down your assembly line....
No, I don't mind workin', but I do mind dyin'

Any idea where you can get a copy of this song?

Norman

[Ted]

Norman

Great book. I've got a signed copy. How sad is that. Do you know anything about the poet who's quoted a lot in it - b.p Flanigan?

The Joe L Carter tune is on a (deleted) Hi Blues compilation. Its probably on some more recent 60s blues collections.

Fred Voss books:
Goodstone (which I think is out of print)
Carnegie Hall With Tin Walls which contains most of Goodstone and some other stuff. You can get it on Amazon.


Cheers
TW

[neil spencer]

I'm afraid Merle Haggard, 'poet of the working man', may disappoint listeners of conventional leftist outlook. 'Big City' is explicit that 'You can keep your retirement and so-called social security'. All Merle wants is what's owing and a place 'somewhere in the middle of Montana' (North America's least populated state) to be free.

When I interviewed Hank Williams III a few years back, he assured me that this was the most popular song among Nashville bar bands.

If you're looking for songs cheering on the nobility of labour, the Union, working class soilidarity etc, look elsewhere. Steve Earle's 'Mountain' maybe. Or state sanctioned Chinese songs about the output of tractors (or trainers) in some province or other.

Mostly, popular song is about escape from drudgery.


ns

[Con Murphy]

Greatest Factory song? Elvis' Hoover Factory, of course! Agree with Neil, music tends to be about escape from the monotony/drudgery of work - Waits' I Just Can't Wait To Get Off Work To See My Baby being a prime example.

[Ted]

But Con

Hoover Factory isn't about factory life its about architecture....

Cheers

TW

[Adam Blake]

"Ya load 16 tons and whadd'ya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St Peter doncha call me 'cos I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"

Who wrote this fantastic song? Who had the hit with it? I'm woefully ignorant about country music. Blues, on the other hand...

"Worked all the summer worked all the fall
Had to take my Christmas in my overalls
But now she's gone and I don't worry
I'm sittin' on top of the world" (Howlin' Wolf)

[howard male]

Songs about architecture - now you're talking! Surely a more challenging song-category for us trivialists to come up with titles about? I've got two already:

'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright' by Simon And Garfunkel

And, slightly more obscure - 'Thru These Architect's Eyes' - David Bowie (from 'Outside')

...And so begins another day of blokes doing what blokes do best - communicating about esoteric information that the rest of the world couldn't give two hoots about, between intermittent bouts of trying to earn a living.

[NormanD]

Mostly, popular song is about escape from drudgery.

....and sometimes complaining about it, and very occasionally suggesting ways of changing it. But mostly the "change" is about escaping from it

A lot of Merle Haggard's songs are populist, they knowingly tap into the mood of the audience. "Big City" is - literally - an escapist song:
" I've been working every day since I was twenty, ain't got a thing to show for anything I done.
Some folks never work and they've got plenty, I think it's time for guys like me to have some fun...."

Or, "A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today":
"For years I've been busting my rear, trying to make a living, but it ain't there..."

I don't listen to much corporate country music, but I'm sure there are plenty "Take This Job And Shove It" songs around, equally escapist. They often seem insincere - they've been written to appeal, and commercial cynicism like this often shows through.

The songs that "celebrate" labour are all too often in the Pete Seeger mode, neither a philosophy or musical taste I've ever especially subscribed to (both sides of the Atlantic, too; Ewan McCall's pomposity falls into this). I've always favoured Paul Lafargue's "The Right To Be Lazy" over the Right To Work, but then I've not been punching eyelets in Nike trainers from the age of 10.... I prefer "Big Rock Candy Mountain" any day.

And just going back to the origin of this theme - posted elsewhere by Rob Hall - from The Observer article about Ry Cooder:
"His next project is already mapped out, with eight of the songs written. 'I started thinking about the white people across town, the factory workers,' he says, telling the story of farmers from the Midwest, lured to California by the promise of abundant agriculture, who found jobs in factories building aircraft during the Second World War. But then the factories went elsewhere and the workers went jobless."

I guess Hoover Factory might fit this, although the song's more about the architecture of the beautiful, West London building (now part of the Kingdom of Tesco) than the folks who made the cleaners. Now, a song about Dyson, who shifted jobs away to low labour markets, might be an interesting prospect. But I'd much prefer it by Elvis C rather than Pete See

OK, back to work...

norman

[Con Murphy]

But Con

Hoover Factory isn't about factory life its about architecture....

Cheers

TW

Yes, I disappeared up my own back passage before typing that. It was meant as a tenuous link back to the dancing about architecture quote of EC's I posted a few days back, in lieu of being able to think of a suitable song.

The songs that "celebrate" labour are all too often in the Pete Seeger mode

Woody Guthrie liked to 'celebrate' the working man as well occasionally, didn't he?

You oil field workers, come and listen to me
I'm goin' to tell you a story about old John D.
That company union made a fool out of me.
That company union don't charge no dues
It leaves you a-singing them Rockefeller blues.
That company union made a fool out of me.

Takes that good ole C.I.O., boys
To keep that oil a-rollin', rollin' over the sea.
Takes that good ole C.I.O., boys
To keep that oil a-rollin' over the sea.

Drilling oil to beat Japan
But the company union don't give a damn.
That company union made a fool out of me.
The oil field workers and the NMU
Going to beat Hitler, and damn quick, too.
That company union made a fool out of me.

Old Berlin to Tokyo
Tanks can't roll if the oil don't flow.
That company union made a fool out of me.
Canada to Mexico
They're joining up with the C.I.O.
That company union made a fool out of me.

C.I.O. is the place for me
When this war is over, I want to be free
That company union made a fool out of me.
I'm a union man in a union war
It's a union land I'm a-fightin' for.
That company union made a fool out of me.

[Con Murphy]

And on the subject of EC, how can we forget Shipbuilding? More a lament than a celebration, but what a great way of making a point that was.

[Con Murphy]

"Ya load 16 tons and whadd'ya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St Peter doncha call me 'cos I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"

Who wrote this fantastic song? Who had the hit with it? I'm woefully ignorant about country music. Blues, on the other hand...

Don't know who wrote it (Merle Travis?), Tennessee Ernie Ford had the hit.

It's been covered by loads of people, including Johnny Cash, The Redskins and...erm, Tom Jones.

[Ted]

One piece at a time - Johnny Cash

Although obviously I don't condone theft of employers property. Much.

On a very peripherally related note, the crane siren in the factory where I work plays the viola part from Black Angels Death Song. Is there a Velvets fan in the design department of a german crane company somwehere?


Cheers
TW

[NormanD]

One piece at a time - Johnny Cash

That's a good one, Ted. I'd forgotten about it.

Which reminds me of the story. A guy is having his hair cut at work. The foreman comes screaming at him:

"What are you doing?! You can't have your hair cut in company time?"

"Why not? It grew in company time?"

"Not all of it did"

"That's OK. I'm only having a trim...."

And yes Con, you are right about Woody Guthrie, shame on me for not considering him the first choice. But Pete Seeger's versions of any Woody song just don't cut it for me.

norman