Re: Labor Day Playlist

A tribute to all the hard working folks in this great land of ours:

REM - Finest Worksong
Sparks - Occupation
Bow Wow Wow - W.O.R.K.
XTC - Earn Enough For Us
The Godfathers - Birth School Work Death
John Lennon - Working Class Hero
Depeche Mode - Work Hard
Donna Summer - She Works Hard for the Money
Pet Shop Boys - Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
Easybeats - Friday on my Mind
Joe Jackson - Friday

Assorted Careers -

FACTORY WORKERS
Bruce Springsteen - Factory
Warren Zevon - Factory
The Vines - Factory
The Clash - (Working for the) Clampdown
Johnny Cash - One Piece at a Time
Bob Seger - Making Thunderbirds
Blondie - Shayla

OFFICE WORKERS
The Ocean Blue - Office of a Busy Man
Talking Heads - Don't Worry About the Government
Modern Lovers - Government Center
In Vitro - Secretary
Stan Ridgway - I Wanna Be a Boss

MINERS
Devo - Working In a Coal Mine
Cowboy Junkies - Mining for Gold
Dave Alvin - The King of California
Midnight Oil - Blue Sky Mine
The Police - Canary in a Coal Mine

FARMERS
Bob Dylan - Maggie's Farm
XTC - Love on a Farmboy's Wages
the Coug - Rain on the Scarecrow
Shonen Knife - Burning Farm
Eddy Arnold - Cattle Call

CONSTRUCTION WORKERS
Cowboy Junkies - Working on a Building
Stan Ridgway - Piledriver
Handsome Family - The House Carpenter

STRIPPERS
Romeo Void - Undercover Kept
The Faint - Worked Up So Sexual

MODELS
The Undertones - Male Model
Prince - Cindy C
RuPaul - Supermodel

LAW ENFORCEMENT
Bruce Springsteen - State Trooper
Bruce Springsteen - Highway Patrolman
Tom Petty - Nightwatchman
Steve Earle - Ellis Unit One
Kraftwerk - Computer World
Catatonia - Mulder and Scully
The Vapors - Civic Hall

BARTENDERS
Looking Glass - Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)

TRUCKERS
Bill Kirchen - Tombstone Every Mile
Blondie - The Hardest Part
Dave Dudley - Six Days on the Road
Red Sovine - Teddy Bear
CW McCall - Convoy
Merle Haggard - Movin' On

PHOTOGRAPHERS
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Red Light
Filter - Take My Picture

PILOTS
Neko Case - Lady Pilot
John Cale - Fighter Pilot
The Handsome Family - Amelia Earhart Vs. the Dancing Bear
Blue Oyster Cult - ME 262
OMD - Enola Gay

SAILORS
Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love - The Legende of Jeb Minor
XTC - All You Pretty Girls

BANKERS
Modern Lovers - The New Teller
Rory Gallagher - Banker's Blues

ICE CREAM MEN
Jonathan Richman - Ice Cream Man
Van Halen - Ice Cream Man

PREACHERS
Eurythmics - Missionary Man
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Bring Me the Head of the Preacher Man
Dusty Springfield - Son of a Preacher Man
Daniel Amos - Return of the Beat Menace
The Vapors - Jimmy Jones

TEACHERS
Van Halen - Hot for Teacher
Rockpile - Teacher, Teacher

SCIENTISTS
Coldplay - The Scientist
OMD - Tesla Girls
Roky Erickson - Two Headed Dog (Red Temple Prayer)
Blue Oyster Cult - Astronomy
Indigo Girls - Galileo
OMD - Genetic Engineering
Kate Bush - Experiment IV

TRAINMEN
REM - Driver 8
Rank & File - The Conductor Wears Black
Grateful Dead - Casey Jones

ASTRONAUTS
David Bowie - Space Oddity
Komputer - Valentina
Elton John - Rocket Man

JUDGES
The Specials - Stupid Marriage



Post Edited (09-01-08 11:34)

You missed a couple of obvious ones:

Rolling Stones - Salt of the Earth (should be the anthem for Labor Day)
Rolling Stones - Factory Girl

Beatles - Drive my Car (for you chauffeurs)
Beatles - Paperback Writer

Elvis Costello - Welcome to the Working Week

Townes Van Zandt's great heartbreaker "Marie" about a homeless couple and their trials after the man loses his job working for the railroad.

Ironic since I've just been on strike.

Miners

Wire - Outdoor Miner
Neurotics - The Mind of valerie
Redskins - Keep On Keeping On
Uncle Tupelo - Coalminers (they didn't write it though, did they?)
Loretta Lynn - Coal Miners Daughter
Sandy Denny - Blue Tattoo
Luke Kelly - The Springhill Mine Disaster
Tennessee Ernie Ford - Sixteen Tons

Conductor Wore Black - That's a great song from a great album, I'm gonna have to pick that up, only had it on vinyl a couple of hundred years ago. Is the follow up as bad as they say?

Long Gone Dead isn't really that bad. It's disappointing compared to Sundown, but overall it's okay. Just some spark missing on it - don't know if it was the departure of Alejandro Escovedo, or just the fact that people knew what to expect. But it's not terrible.

The third Rank and File album, which I believe was self-titled, was completely atrocious. They ditched the country elements and tried to be heartland rockers or something, and it was flat-out awful. I think I bought and sold it within a 48 hour period and tried to never think about it again.

before:

[www.youtube.com]

after:

[www.youtube.com]

now:

[www.youtube.com]

(does he have his kids playing in the band?)

Well now! After watching that, I don't hate "Black Book" anywhere near as much now as I remember hating it in 1987. At the time it came out my main thought was what the hell is this shit? Now it sounds like a fairly okay rock song that I probably would've liked just fine if it had been by the Georgia Satellites instead of Rank & File.

Now I'm forced wonder about the rest of the album, as I have to doubt that it was as bad as I thought back then.

just a few extras to get through the hangover of today and the sad realization of another summer slipping by...

The Moz - Work Is a Four Letter Word
Ellen Allien - Poor People Must Work
Biafra & Nixon - Where Are We Gonna Work (When the Trees Are Gone)
Durutti Column - They Work Every Day
Husker Du - All Work and No Play
Heavy Vegetable - Abducted by the Work Aliens
Mike Ladd - Field Work
Wynton Marsalis/Mingus/Nina Simone/Cannonball Adderley/etc - Work Song (Blood on the Fields)Bessie Smith - Work House Blues
Sting - We Work the Black Seam
John Zorn - Work Trance
The Mekons - Work all Week

Art Bears - The Slave
Blood Bros - New York Slave
Nick Cave+ - Sunday's Slave
Fantomas-Melvins Big Band - Good Morning Slaves
Funki Porcini - White Slave
Godflesh - Slavestate
John Zorn - My Master, My Slave
NiN - Happiness in Slavery
Oingo Boingo - Not My Slave
Can - Slave Dancer & Taxi Driver
Stones - Slave
TJ Kirk/Vandermark 5 - Volunteered Slavery
Jungle - Slave Ship

=P

In that case

Afghan Whigs - I'm Her Slave

Frank Zappa - Working in a Gas Station

I keep a running list of the Daily Hilights from my iPod which I should be updating on a daily basis. In practice I do a mass update about once a month (thank god iTunes lets you see what you played when!)

Maybe now that I'm sharing it here I'll be motivated to keep it more up to date...



Post Edited (09-02-08 21:53)

[buddylove.us]

If you'd like to amp that up a bit, check out LastFM. You can automatically send your play stats from iTunes or pretty much any other player and there's tons of music geek toys and stats... since its rare to find anyone else who'll ever understand the obsession.




=P