Top 10 '80s Songs About Work

On this underrated 1982 offering from bar-band-gone-pop Huey Lewis & the News, the parallels between the struggles of a hard-working bar band and the average working stiff almost come off as convincing. After all, the prospect of not getting a raise when it's needed or expected as well as the speed at which wages slip away are highly familiar subjects for those of us who aren't rock stars. Above all, however, the "takin' what they're givin'" capper to the chorus expresses most clearly the frustrations of 9-to-5 life.

It's difficult to pick out just one '80s song about work by Bruce Springsteen, an artist who has always retained a fierce sympathy and fascination for the plight of the working man. Still, this lesser-known tune from Born in the USA stands perhaps as Springsteen's most direct examination of the way in which work can trap us and lead us to desperate acts in order to avoid wasting away in its grip. Or maybe that's just the Marxist in me, but work and a feeling of doom are certainly not strangers.

Without question everybody expects a Loverboy song to make this list, but I'm going to toss a curveball and leave off the ubiquitous and overrated "Working for the Weekend" to make room for this lesser-known rocker from 1985's Lovin' Every Minute of It. The reason for that choice is that, aside from the title, the band's most famous tune really isn't about work at all. "Friday Night," however, celebrates directly the shedding of another grueling work week with the help of an endless party.

Billy Joel has not always been at his best when he goes for social commentary (see "We Didn't Start the Fire"), but this tune is an appropriately sympathetic and detailed treatment of an issue that continues to haunt the American worker. The erosion of industrial bases has long devastated communities, but Joel's lyrical specifics and biting understanding of what it feels like to have one's livelihood rejected or shelved really hits hard emotionally. "No, I won't be getting up today..." Gut-wrenching.

Well, this one's a no-brainer, a great pop song that deftly combines the '80s social issue of the ever-increasing flood of women into the workplace with good old-fashioned wage-earner struggles. The song's lyrics chronicle the tough times a waitress has in making ends meet, and there's a definite poignancy to the way the tune's protagonist somehow finds a way to feel her work is worthwhile. The fact that the lyrics can also function as a warning to men everywhere serves as a nice bonus.

It's not surprising to find on this list another Bruce who released a classic '80s album and who displays a knack at writing high-quality, socially conscious pop songs. In the case of this tune, Hornsby organically writes about something he knows well as a native of the shipping center of coastal Virginia. His dockworker protagonist longs for a better life but doesn't complain about breaking his back. And at the heart of the song is romantic yearning, a layer that provides extra emotional punch.

This Prince-penned monster hit for the Bangles is an '80s classic on several levels, but its treatment of matters of the workplace stands as particularly unique. Dread surrounding the onset of Monday is definitely not a new subject for pop music, but the song's bridge cleverly turns the topic on its head. As Susannah Hoffs sings of an inconveniently timed amorous proposal from her lover, "Manic Monday" becomes a wistful meditation on the clash between mundane obligations and the joys of life.

Perhaps no song on this list paints work in a more agonizing way than this early-'80s Sheena Easton gem. After all, work is the one thing that keeps her poor, train-riding beau away from the apparently constant pleasure provided at home by Easton's sex-starved narrator. Oh, the clockwatching that must go on at this guy's office! On the other hand, the sex might not be as satisfying if the lovers lolled at home together all day, with one or the other asking for a romp every day at noon. Then again...

A lost new wave classic celebrating a profession steeped in tradition, this catchy tune became a minor hit for the short-lived British band in 1983. And while it doesn't get into the particulars of the work done by the titular female character, the tune does a good job of exploring the sociopolitical ramifications presented by lovers with highly disparate lifestyles. More than anything, though, it boasts an explosively infectious chorus that qualifies this song as the best kind of ear candy.

Sometimes unfairly characterized as a poor man's U2, the Alarm always had an interesting and gritty take on human struggle, and this tune is a worthy entry in the labor song pantheon. The song's images of the protagonist walking the streets alone, defiant in the face of indignity, could stir the heart of the most stony conservative (or not). Well, let's not ask too much from a pop song. Suffice it to say that the salt-of-the-earth theme works well with the Alarm's ragged sound.