History Main / JobSong

** In "What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me" from "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS3E13MagiclaMysteryCure Magical Mystery Cure]]", the protagonists' (sans Twilight's) cutie marks (symbols on their rear thighs that convey their destinies) have been swapped, so they are singing about having to do one another's jobs and not being very good at them.

-->''We sing the song of the sewer\\
Of the sewer we sing this song\\
Together we stand\\
With shovel in hand\\
To keep things rolling along''

* Creator/ArtCarney's "Song of the Sewer" is sung from the perspective of his ''Series/TheHoneymooners'' character Norton, a sewer worker.

If it's sung by the one with the job, it can overlap with IAmSong (if the character's job is a notable part of their role and/or personality), IWantSong (if the character doesn't want that job), IAmBecomingSong (if their job is a step towards a different one or they're singing about their future job), MusicalChores (if their job involves cleaning up), or IAmGreatSong (if they're bragging about their job). Examples for pirates go under PirateSong and examples for singers/musicians ''usually'' go under RockStarSong. If it's about the oldest job in the book, see BalladOfASexWorker. Compare MoneySong. See TakeThisJobAndShoveIt for characters who hate their jobs enough to at least contemplate a RageQuit.

* Parodied with the notorious "Lumberjack Song" sketch in ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'', in which a group of jolly lumberjacks singing a song like this are increasingly shocked when the lead singer changes the lyrics to come out about his transvestitism/transsexuality.

** In "The Thirty-Minute Work Week", Wembley's friends sing "Workin'", a song about their jobs and the importance of work in general.
** In the same episode, the members of the Volunteer Fire Department sing "The Fireman's Anthem", a song about a [[DayInTheLife typical day in the life]] of a Fraggle fireman.
** In "The Great Radish Famine", the Doozers sing "Doozer March Song", which is about the joy of building their constructions.

* In ''Theatre/ManOfLaMancha'', TheBarber has a song about what he does as a barber, a number which gets taken over by Don Quixote after a few verses under the misapprehension that the barber's washing basin is the legendary Golden Helmet of Mambrino.

-->-- '''NurseryRhyme''', "I've Been Working on the Railroad"

* ''Series/SesameStreet'':
** Exaggerated for "People in Your Neighbourhood", which talks about ''several'' different occupations that people you meet on the street might have.
** "Do the Doctor" is a song by some doctors creating a dance based on their profession.

* 'Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': Parodied in the "Hired! The Musical" segment based on the short film "Hired Part 1" durig the episode, ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S04E23BrideOfTheMonster Bride Of The Monster]]''.

* 'Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': Parodied in the "Hired! The Musical" segment based on the short film "Hired Part 1" durig the episode, ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S04E23BrideOfTheMonster Bride Of The Monster]]''.

* 'Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': Parodied in the "Hired! The Musical" segment based on the short film "Hired Part 1" durig the episode, ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S04E23BrideOfTheMonster Bride Of The Monster]]'';

* 'Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': Parodied in the "Hired! The Musical" segment based on the short film "Hired Part 1" durig the episode, ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S04E23BrideOfTheMonster BrideOfTheMonster]]'';

->''"I've been working on the railroad all the livelong day. I've been working on the railroad just to pass the time away."''

** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtAG3e3JLNI I Don't Know]]" is a parody of "Let it Go" about being a med student and not knowing the answers to questions.
** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7Ua96trb2Y Are You Gonna Flush the Toilet?]]" is a parody of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" about being a janitor.

** As Curt Smith explained in [[https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49172980597_63fc059549_o.jpg an interview]], "The Working Hour" is about the stress of meeting the demands and deadlines of the band's pushy record company. He and Roland Orzabal resented being bossed around in this fashion because the final product ended up being a failure in the duo's eyes.

* ''Series/TheSunnySideUpShow'': The song "Wave to Heroes", performed by Kaitlin and Carly, is about occupations such as firefighters and librarians.

* "Working Man" by Music/{{Rush}}, a class complaint.

* ''Series/TheSunnySideUpShow'': The song "Wave to Heroes," performed by Kaitlin and Carly, is about occupations such as firefighters and librarians.

If it's sung by the one with the job, it can overlap with IAmSong (if the character's job is a notable part of their role and/or personality), IWantSong (if the character doesn't want that job), IAmBecomingSong (if their job is a step towards a different one or they're singing about their future job), MusicalChores (if their job involves cleaning up), or IAmGreatSong (if they're bragging about their job). Examples for pirates go under PirateSong and examples for singers/musicians ''usually'' go under RockStarSong. If the job in question is the oldest one in the book, see BalladOfASexWorker. Compare MoneySong. See TakeThisJobAndShoveIt for characters who hate their jobs enough to at least contemplate a RageQuit.

* In ''Film/{{Annie}}'', the song "You're Gonna Like it Here" downplays this. It's about the inner workings of the Warbucks house, which includes, but is not limited to, the servants singing about what they do.

* A SpaceOpera folk duo in ''Newton's Wake'' by Creator/KenMacleod sing AsteroidMiner shanties:

* "Beat and Broken Spirits" from ''Theatre/JasperInDeadland'' is about the slaves in Mr Lethe's factory endlessly toiling away.

-->I am your dentist\\

And I get off on the pain I inflict!

* ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance'' has two: "The Major General's Song" ("I am the very model of a Modern Major General.") and "The Pirate King's Song" ("It is, it is a glorious thing to be the pirate king!").
* "It's Hard to be the Bard" from ''Theatre/SomethingRotten'' has Creator/WilliamShakespeare bemoan the hard work that comes with being a celebrity playwright.
* ''Theatre/{{SpiesAreForever}}'':
** In "Somebody's Gotta Do It", Sergio, (a bomb maker) and The Deadliest Man Alive (an assassin) sing about their respective professions ("Somebody's gotta do it; so it might as well be me"), the former claiming he only does it for the money and to support his family, whereas the latter actively enjoys torturing his targets and even remarks he'd kill them for free.

* "All The Livelong Day" from ''Theatre/{{Working}}'' is an ensemble number about the daily grind.
-->All the livelong day
-->Everybody done know that song
-->Working for a living the whole day long
-->All the livelong day...

[[folder: Video Games]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' has "We All Lift Together", a work song sung by the Solaris underneath the Corpus' thumb. It sings about their legacy and the constant work they do to escape the yoke of their debts, working together until they're free or die trying to earn their freedom.

[[folder: Western Animation]]

** Owen, Paige, and Helen's verses in "Own It" each discuss their job situations - Owen, the caretaker of Central Park, wants to be more confident in his role, journalist Paige wants to move out of writing fluff pieces for her small-scale paper, and maid Helen dreams of inheriting her BadBoss's millions after years of demeaning labor.
** "If There's a Will" dives more into Helen's perspective working under Bitsy, believing if she does everything just right she will make it into the childless Bitsy's will.
** In "Spoiler Alert", Birdie discusses his job as narrator and how important it is not to give his knowledge of future events away to the audience or the characters in the story.
** "Momma's Got This", "Die Trying", "Ideally I'd Deal With It", and "Onto Something" also deal with Paige and Owen's jobs.

** Downplayed for Flim and Flam's cider song. It's mainly just advertising their cider maker, but it's also about how they're travelling salesponies.
** In "What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me", the protagonists' (sans Twilight's) cutie marks (symbols on their rear thighs that convey their destinies) have been swapped, so they are singing about having to do one another's jobs and not being very good at them.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** "Trash of the Titans" has Homer singing "The Garbage Man Can" song, in which he sings about all the things his new job as Springfield's Sanitation Inspector will allow him to do for its citizens. The song is a parody of the "The Candyman" song from ''Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory'' mentioned above in the "Film" folder.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': In "Butt Out" a chorus of cigarette factory workers sing a jolly song about the joys of their job.

** "White Collar Holler" is a work shanty about a computer programmer.

* The union song "Solidarity Forever", associated with Pete Seeger, describes all the way that workers create things.
* "Truckers are the Blood" by Music/{{AJJ}} is about working in various ways, and ends with praising truckers.
-->"Work a ten hour grave from nine to seven"
* Music/DeadKennedys' [[Music/{{Frankenchrist}} "At My Job"]]:
-->"I'm working at my job\\
I'm so happy\\
More boring every day\\
But they pay me"
* Music/TalkingHeads' [[Music/MoreSongsAboutBuildingsAndFood "Found a Job"]] details the lives of a married couple who run their own production studio, making good-quality, well-regarded, and commercially successful TV shows in response to the constant trite on the airwaves that they used to argue over. Their earlier song [[Music/TalkingHeads77 "Don't Worry About the Government"]] also directly references working, but delves more into the location at which the narrator works than the job itself.
* Music/TheyMightBeGiants:
** "Snowball in Hell" is about a white-collar worker who [[SoulCrushingDeskJob feels ground down by his job]] and is stuck working there ("A jailer trapped in his cell") even though he can barely make ends meet.
** "Employee of the Month" is about a guy bragging about his job at "the crumb factory".
** "Dog Walker" is about a dog-walker who fancies himself an intellectual ("My mind is a wrecking ball / And someday my mind's gonna wreck all y'all") and dreams of a better life, one where he's as carefree as the dogs he walks ("I am a dog walker / But someday I'll be a dog").
* Music/TheWiggles: "The Bricklayers Song".
* Sea shanties were originally intended to keep a rhythm going while you worked, and many of them are about being a sailor. The same principle applies to songs about working on the railways.
* "We Poor Labouring Men", a traditional English folk song popularised by Music/SteeleyeSpan, describes various trades as being utterly helpless without labourers to do the actual work, concluding "There's never a trade in all England like we poor labouring men".
* "Process Man" (AKA "The ICI Song") by Ron Angel is about the guys who use cyanide solvents to get useful minerals from ore. Their job sucks, as the chemical plant they work at is a NightmarishFactory.
->"The work is rough, I seen enough\\
To make your stomach turn.\\
And it's 'go boys go!'\\
They time your every breath\\
And every day you're in this place,\\
You're two days nearer death!\\
But you go..."
* Several Music/AmateurTransplants songs, most notably "Anaesthetist's Hymn", about how boring being an anesthetist is, and "Careless Surgeon", about an incompetent surgeon.
* Music/LynyrdSkynyrd: "Workin' for the [=MCA=]" seems to be about working in the music industry in general.
* Music/{{ACDC}}: "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll)" is about the starvation wages and generally poor working conditions encountered by neophyte rock bands.
* Music/TearsForFears:
** In "The Way You Are", the narrator works at a factory and describes it as a DangerousWorkplace. The song's mechanized beats are the musical equivalent of the repetitive sounds generated by the machines that habitually maim (and even kill) the employees.
** As Curt Smith explains in [[https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49172980597_63fc059549_o.jpg this interview,]] "The Working Hour" is about the stress of meeting the demands and deadlines of the band's pushy record company. He and Roland Orzabal resented being bossed around in this fashion because the final product ended up being a failure in the duo's eyes.
--->'''Smith''': "The Working Hour" was written at the time of "The Way You Are" because of all the work, the ''pressure'' of work. It was getting like a job all of a sudden. One line is "We are paid by those who learn by our mistakes", and that's about being used as guinea pigs, basically: "Get another record out, your career's going down the drain!" So you put out a record that's a flop...
* Music/GlenCampbell's "Wichita Lineman" is about a county lineman[[note]]as in someone who maintains telephone lines, not an American football player[[/note]] lamenting how his job's long, lonely hours are keeping him from the one he loves.

[[folder: Theatre]]

* Several songs in ''Theatre/{{Hadestown}}'' feature the Workers toiling in Hades' factories. Their portions of "Chant" introduce them and the mantra they chant to keep out of trouble, while "Why We Build the Wall" has Hades holding a rally to explain how 'vital' their jobs are. "Way Down Hadestown (Reprise)" has Eurydice being inducted into the fold of Workers and the mines, mills and machinery. Later songs such as "If It's True" and "Chant (Reprise)" subvert the trope by starting out with the Workers at work like normal, but deciding to stop and stand with Orpheus.

* "Sixteen Tons" - written by Merle Travis and popularized by Tennessee Ernie Ford - is one of the bleakest job songs in existence, as it's a man's lament that regardless of how hard he works, he'll never escape the CompanyTown.
* Music/BillyJoel:
** "Piano Man" is about a piano player at a bar whose playing makes the patrons forget about their troubles.
** "The Entertainer" is about a rock singer and the compromises he's had to make to stay on the charts.

* Music/TheByrds' album track "BB Class Road" is in the voice of a roadie boasting about how cool his job is.
* "Car Wash Blues" from 1974, written and performed by Music/JimCroce, is the lament of a man with talent and ambition scrubbing the grunge off other people's vehicles. This from the days when very little of the process was mechanized, and was mostly manual labor.

* "She Works Hard for the Money" by Music/DonnaSummer is about the singer talking about a blue collar working who had working hard for 28 years, and experiencing the good and bad times, and the singer addresses the listener to treat her right. Summer stated that the song was inspired by an encounter with a restroom attendant named Onetta Johnson. The music video is about a waitress who set aside her dreams of being a ballerina to raise her children. Summer, who was observing, helps her dance in the streets along with other women in various work uniforms.
* The Creator/HarryBelafonte song "The Banana Boat Song" is about some workers who work all night stacking bananas onto a boat.

-->'Twas on a Monday morning
-->The Gas-Man came to call;
-->The gas tap wouldn't turn - I wasn't getting gas at all.
-->He tore out all the skirting boards
-->To try and find the main,
-->And I had to call a Carpenter to put them back again.
-->Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do!
-->'Twas on a Tuesday morning
-->The Carpenter came round;
-->He hammered and he chiselled and he said: 'Look what I've found!
-->Your joists are full of dry-rot
-->But I'll put it all to rights.'
-->Then he nailed right through a cable and out went all the lights.
-->Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do!
...and so on, until a painter paints over the gas taps, which results in him having to call the gasman yet again...
* The nursery rhyme "I've Been Working on the Railroad" is about someone who, well, works on the railroad.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89i6mbRixrk "Keep Your Dirty Lights On"]] by Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott puts a twist on the omnipresent Coal Mining Song--it recounts the transition from underground to mountaintop mining, and argues that [[SocietyIsToBlame politicians and apathetic citizens are complicit]] in the destruction the industry causes.
** Scott's best-known song, "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive,"[[note]]notably covered by Music/PattyLoveless and Music/BradPaisley[[/note]] isn't ''about'' coal mining, in the way that "Dirty Lights On" or "Sixteen Tons" are... but [[{{TearJerker/Music}} it's about coal mining.]]
* "Long Hot Summer Day" by the Music/TurnpikeTroubadours is about, of all things, navigating freight barges on the Illinois River. (Like many of their songs, it also sketches a broader picture of working-class life in that region.)
* "My Old Man's a Dustman" is sung from the perspective of a guy whose father is a garbage man and the singer hails him as an "unsung hero".
* "Paperback Writer" by Music/TheBeatles is about a man trying to make it as... well, a paperback writer.
* "Rockabye" by Music/CleanBandit is about a SingleMomStripper who works for her six year old son for a better future.
* Music/TomWaits: "I Can't Wait To Get Off Work (and See My Baby On Montgomery Avenue)" is sung from the perspective of a man who does odd jobs, while sweeping up and cleaning bathrooms on a night job, about how he wished he was at home with the woman he misses.
* ''Series/TheTwoRonnies'' as Jehosophat and Jones have their own song about someone who works on the railroad: ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42omQRtlgoU Railroad Man]]''.
-->They said 'Lay tracks for the railroad, \\
'cos steam means speed and power'; \\

About fifteen feet an hour, oh Lord, about fifteen feet an hour.

-->I get up at seven, yeah
-->And I go to work at nine
-->I got no time for livin'
-->Yes, I'm workin' all the time.
* Many of the songs of Music/StanRogers are about different jobs; "The Field Behind the Plow" is about a farmer, "The Idiot" is about a refinery worker, and "White Collar Holler" is a work shanty about a computer programmer.
* The song "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford is about being a coal miner. "You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt."