Top Ten 'I Quit!' Songs

Specially for Lee at Quit Your Day Job... and anyone who might be considering packing it all in and joining me on the scrap heap / glorious golden road to success and riches (delete as applicable).

10. Elvis Presley - Guitar Man

(From 'The Essential Elvis Presley')

If you're thinking of taking the plunge, Elvis advises caution. Don't jump till you've got somewhere to jump to...

Well, I quit my job down at the car wash
I left my momma a goodbye note
By sundown I'd left Kingston
With my guitar under my coat
I hitchhiked all the way down to Memphis
Got a room at the YMCA
For the next three weeks I went hunting them nightclubs
Looking for a place to play
Well, I thought my pickin' would set 'em on fire
But nobody wanted to hire a guitar man

One of my very favourite Elvis tunes, written by Jerry Reed. There's also a cracking version by The Jesus & Mary Chain from the old NME compilation The Last Temptation Of Elvis.

We don't need no guitar man, son!

9. The Ramones - The Job That Ate My Brain

(From 'The Chrysalis Years Anthology')

You have to wonder what employer in their right mind would give these scruffy toe-rags a job in the first place?

I can't take this crazy pace.
I've become a mental case.
Yeah, this is the job that ate my brain.

8. Tennessee Ernie Ford - Sixteen Tons

(From 'Tennessee Ernie Ford The Greatest Hits & More')

You think your job's bad? You could be loading sixteen tons of coal a day with nothing to show for it but being "another day older and deeper in debt".

The Johnny Cash version is also worth a mention. The Johnny Cash version is always worth a mention.

7. The Enemy - Away From Here

(From 'We'll Live And Die In These Towns')

Does this sound at all familiar to you?

I'm so sick, sick, sick and tired
Of working just to be retired
I don't want to get that far
I don't want your company car
Promotions aint my thing
Name badges are not interesting
It's much easier for me see
To stay at home with Richard and Judy

Fans of The Jam (see below) may answer that it sounds a little too familiar...

6. Drive By Truckers - This F*cking Job

(From 'The Big To-Do')

Well, yes, but there's no need to swear, is there? I'm trying really hard to clean up the language round this blog these days...

Workin' this job is a kick in the pants
Workin' this job is like a knife in the back
It ain't gettin' me further than the dump I live in
It ain't gettin' me further than the next paycheck

5. The Flaming Lips - Bad Days

(From 'Clouds Taste Metallic')

See, if you ask me, the Lips have a rather extreme way of dealing with the problem...

You hate your boss at your job
But in your dreams you can blow his head off
In your dreams, show no mercy!

But only in your dreams, obviously. I'd never condone this course of action in real life. Unless your boss is an absolute...

4. Alan Jackson & Jimmy Buffett - It's Five O'Clock Somewhere

(From '34 Number Ones')

The sun is hot and that old clock is movin' slow,

An' so am I.

Work day passes like molasses in wintertime,

But it's July.

I'm gettin' paid by the hour, an' older by the minute.

My boss just pushed me over the limit.

I'd like to call him somethin',

I think I'll just call it a day.

The pristine white stetson, the perfectly trimmed moustache... Alan Jackson is probably everything you hate about modern country music, right?

Well, you know what? Stuff you! It's five o'clock somewhere...

3. The Jam - Just Who Is The Five O'Clock Hero?

(From 'The Gift')

Who'd ever have imagined Paul Weller and Alan Jackson would be singing from the same hymn sheet? I guess hating the 9 to 5 really is universal. Hell, just ask Dolly Parton!

It seems a constant struggle just to exist
Scrimping and saving and crossing off lists
From this window I`ve seen the whole world pass
From dawn to dusk I`ve heard the last laugh laughed
I`ve seen enough tears to wash away this street
I`ve heard wedding bells chime and a funeral march
When as one life finishes the other one starts

Alright then love so I`ll be off now
It`s back to the lunchbox and worker management rows
There`s gotta be more to this old life than this
Scrimping and saving and crossing off lists

2. The Smiths - Frankly, Mr. Shankly

(From 'The Queen Is Dead')

Considering Morrissey famously sang "I was looking for a job and then I found a job - and heaven knows I'm miserable now", it's no surprise he'd end up writing another song about hating the boss of his record company (Geoff Travis - who apparently did write bloody awful poetry).

Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this position I've held
It pays my way but it corrodes my soul...

I want to leave
You will not miss me
I want to go down in musical history

Who wouldn't feel more fulfilled making Christmas cards for the mentally ill?

Still Mr. Travis might console himself with the knowledge that Morrissey could probably have written the same lyrics about any of the many, many record company bosses he's encountered since leaving Rough Trade. Well, when you go in with that kind of attitude...

1. Johnny Paycheck - Take This Job And Shove It

(From 'The Best of Johnny Paycheck')

There were a lot of country songs on this list, even for a good old boy such as myself, but jacking in your job is obviously a recurring theme in that genre - probably more so than any other. And there's none more direct than this old classic from the aptly named Johnny Paycheck... can you think of anything better to sing as you're walking out the door?



If you can, leave it with your keys in the comments...

Top Twenty Train Songs

I know, it's been a while. You've been getting Top Ten withdrawal, haven't you? To make up for it, here's 20 songs about trains. Because there's a new Denzel Washington movie out this week where the train don't stop for nobody... or something. It's got Captain Kirk in it too (no, not The Shat). I might have to go watch that...

20. The Doobie Bros - Long Train Running

Likely to be the first and last time the Doobie Brothers appear in one of my lists, unless I do a What A Fool Believes Top Ten.

19. Whistler - Don't Jump In Front Of My Train

A wistful indie gem from the mid-90s, dedicated to all of you who have been held up on your way home by some selfish suicide...

18. ELO - Last Train To London

Considering my love for all things Electric, Light and Orchestral, this should be higher in the list. Unfortunately it suffered a little overkill in my head between 15 and 20 years ago when "the radio" decided it was one of the best testing oldies ever and subsequently played it three times an hour for about 6 months nonstop.

17. Johnny Cash - Hey Porter

You can't help but think it was a simpler, better world when Johnny Cash began writing songs back in the early 50s. You know, when train companies paid someone to help you with your bags...

See also Rock Island Line, Orange Blossom Special, and a bunch of other Man In Black songs I don't have time to link to.

16. Thea Gilmore - Don't Set Foot Over The Railway Tracks

Sadly, one of Thea Gilmore's greatest songs can't be found anywhere online for me to point you to. It's available on her album Songs From The Gutter though, and well worth tracking down.

Don't set foot
Over the railway track
The Heathens and the spin-doctors
Are waiting round the back
The skies are always sullen and
Rain races to the tarmac
So don't set foot
Over the railway track

Don't set foot
Over the railway track
The grass isn't green its yellow
And the pavement is all cracks
The graveyard's in a coma
The church has got the blues
And Jesus has a nose-ring
And Mary has tattoos

Girls paint their skins like corpses
And have hair of scouring wire
And the men all look like demons
See them dancing round their fires
Every door has leprosy
Every house has got the clap
So don't set foot
Over the railway track

15. The O'Jays - Love Train

A prime slab of Philly cheese.

14. Bruce Springsteen - Downbound Train

You should have realised by now... if these lists don't contain a Morrissey track, they must by law feature The Boss. If you don't like it, you know where the Next Blog button is.

13. Gordon Lightfoot - Canadian Railroad Trilogy

A true story of blood, sweat and tears. Songwriting as history lesson - if my history teacher had sounded like Gordon Lightfoot, I wouldn't have dropped it at the end of the Third Year.

12. Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip - Last Train Home

In which the beardy rapper finds himself on the last train home, surrounded by people who are "either stinking of weed or stinking of beer, being loud and obscene or sitting in tears". No wonder he doesn't want to be there.

11. The Monkees - Last Train To Clarksville

I'll meet you at the station... for our last bit of nookie before they ship me off to war.

10. Soul Asylum - Runaway Train

I'll play this one for Tony McGee, the biggest Soul Asylum fan I know.

9. The Cure - Jumping Someone Else's Train

Don't say what you mean
You might spoil your face

8. Spearmint - The Train

Shirley Lee's observational tale will be familiar to most commuters...

Everybody runs down the steps in case the train is coming
They didn't run when they left their houses
Didn't run along the street or down the escalators
Just for this very last bit

As the train arrives they start to walk along the platform
As though it might just go right past
As though today it might be too short

People crowd around the doors, initially letting people get off
But soon pressing forward
Even though there are empty seats they push anxiously
As though the doors may close before they manage to get on

A man insists that people should "move down, please!"
He does this in a haughty and petulant manner
But he's the same man who didn't move down the other day
I see him often

And just as the door is closing, and as the beeper's beeping
A man with a backpack hurls himself in
His rucksack gets trapped between the closing doors
He struggles, the doors re-open, and he stumbles into the carriage
Embarrassed and relieved
People look disapproving
"How selfish," they think
Some look away, but each of them has done the same at some point in the past

Some people are reading newspapers
Many seem transfixed by the newspaper of the person next to them
And are snatching covert glances
Even if they have the same paper themselves

Several people are reading novels
You can tell what the latest bestsellers are
Just by looking down the carriage...

And that's when the story really begins.

7. Gladys Knight & The Pips - Midnight Train To Georgia

I never realised just how sad this song is until I heard the Neil Diamond version.

6. Elvis Presley - Mystery Train

I love the illiterate arguments people have on youtube...

The words to the song is : Train I ride , sixteen coaches long NOT Train arrive ..... At least if you are gonna put up info on the record at least get it right ........

THANQ a lotttt for ur info but this is not my problem, It's the lyric 's web site problem ,and The English not my 1st language ,I just love the King and adore this song u should thank me and say good word .

5. Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time - The Girl Who Waves At Trains

You're as welcome as a Christmas rose
Like a shotgun in a field of crows
As breathless as my fifth form prose

Stephen, I hate to pick, but how welcome is that shotgun if you're a crow?

4. Elbow - Station Approach

Guy Garvey describes the uplifting emotion of returning to your hometown by train after a long time away...

The streets are full of Goths and Greeks
I haven't seen my mum for weeks
But coming home I feel like I
Designed these buildings I walk by

This song also wins through the typical Garvey compliment, "You little sod, I love your eyes". What an old romantic he is.

3. Paul Simon - Train In The Distance

Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks it's true

One of the best songs Paul Simon ever wrote.

2. Ocean Colour Scene - The Day We Caught The Train

Say what you want about Britpop, say what you want about Ocean Colour Scene... but this is a gorgeous blast of euphoric, picture-painting singalong pop that I'll never grow tired of. Could have been Number One but I bottled it...

1. The Jam - Down In The Tube Station At Midnight

Weller used to be such a great storyteller. Why doesn't he tell stories like this anymore?



So... which train did I miss?