It’s Labour Day, a day to pause and wonder whether we work to live or live to work.
The first Monday of September is the least manic of them all because, like Fifth Harmony, we don't gotta go to work, work, work, work, work, work, work – we can work from home, oh, oh, oh-oh.
Yes, on this holiday, let us all remember the words of a great champion of the working class: “You wanna Lamborghini? Sip martinis? Look hot in a bikini? You better work, b***h.” (OK, so it was Britney Spears, but you get the point.)
With as little work possible, we’ve come up with 10 songs that celebrate work and the workers who do it.
In the early ‘80s, everyone worked hard all week so we could have a couple of days off to turn it loose and shop for hair products in our leather pants. No one articulated this as well as Ontario’s Loverboy.
When this song came out in 1980, a cup of ambition didn't cost three bucks at Starbucks. Dolly Parton penned the perfect anthem for office workers hoping to show their boss a thing or two. (And if anyone has a thing or two to show, it’s Dolly.)
“I’ll be working here forever,” Lewis sings. “At least until I die.” This sentiment may have rang true in 1982, when the song came out, but these days you’ll probably get fired long before you die. See, things have got better for workers.
“It's the working, the working, just the working life,” sings the ironically-named Boss in this 1978 ode to a factory-working father.
No one works harder than a woman. Donna Summer celebrated this in 1983 after seeing washroom attendant Onetta Johnson at a popular L.A. restaurant. When a woman spends her day listening to other women pee, you better treat her right.
English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg reminds us “the lessons of the past were all learned with workers' blood.” Remember that when you’re whining about not being allowed to text during your shift at the mall.
Sure, this catchy 1973 song from Canada’s BTO could be interpreted as an ode to the working class — but it’s really a big f-you to anyone who works for someone else. Listen closely as Randy Bachman sings: “If your train's on time / you can get to work by nine / and start your slaving job to get your pay / If you ever get annoyed, look at me I'm self-employed / I love to work at nothing all day.” Oh, snap.
In 1987, Cher oozed sincerity when she sang: “In an hour she'll be working in a tower made of steel in the sky. She’s just a pawn in the struggle in a never-ending fight to survive.”
This is Pete Seeger’s version of what is easily the most famous union anthem, written by Ralph Chaplin in 1915. One listen and you’ll be itching for a march.
Labour Day is a good time to remember that a lot of people aren’t lucky enough to have a job. “Give me a job, give me security, give me a chance to survive,” goes this 1978 song from Styx. “Make me an offer that I can't refuse. Make me respectable, man.”