I really ought to know better by now. Music related Google searches always end up like this. Ultra hip bands I cared little for when I was younger and who I'm even less interested in now. Drive-By Truckers always come up on these sorts of lists for some reason. Sufjan Stevens is another one. Am I so out of touch? No, it's the search engines who are wrong.
I don't expect to see songs like the ones I listed above but I don't think it's too much to expect something from before 2005. (Scratch that: J.J. Cale's "Unemployment" is included) But such is the state of my music tastes. I have a soft spot for UK sophisti-pop from the eighties, a sub-genre that hasn't yet enjoyed a reappraisal similar to its American cousin yacht rock. The cheery Bakersfield country of Buck Owens is largely ignored in favour of phony baloney C&W outlaws. Songs by The Beach Boys written by Al Jardine do not have much in the way of cred but I'd argue that he was the group's finest songwriter who didn't have the surname 'Wilson'. And then there's XTC who only fans of XTC ever bring up. (It is only with The Clash and Talking Heads that I have cool kid bona fides to show off)
Barring ignorance is there any excuse for leaving off "Get a Job" by The Silhouettes? Not so much ignorance of the song itself since it appeared in Trading Places and Good Morning, Vietnam and Stand by Me and, crucially, has those memorable "sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na" refrains. If you don't think you know it, give it a listen and get back to me. A problem could be that its message gets lost among The Silhouettes and their vocal dynamism. Bill Horton's lead vocals can end up getting drowned out by his bandmates and their apparent lack of desire to lay out at any point. This would be a problem but for the fact it wouldn't be the same without the relentless backing vocals.
I prefer several of the songs listed above and I have no doubt that the Google search results point to numbers with lyrics that give much more thoughtful observations on the subject of joblessness than "Get a Job". Yet, it may well be the truest account of unemployment ever put to tape. The narrative's most appealing aspect is the fact that neither side comes out of it looking well. The girl in this account never stops nagging her guy to land this job she wants so badly for him while he is clearly putting in a minimal effort at best. Is he lying about trying to land a gig somewhere? No doubt but her insistence on poking the bear isn't helping.
In one of those scenarios that seemed to happen on a regular basis back in those days, the plaintive barbershop R&B track "I Am Lonely" was at first meant to be the A-side of The Silhouettes' latest release until disc jockeys discovered that they and their audiences much preferred the charming and comical number on the flip side. Quite right too. For while "I Am Lonely" is very good for what it is, there's nothing about it that makes it stand out the way its 7" companion does.
With all that said, I find myself admiring "Get a Job" but not quite loving it. (I can't even imagine mustering the enthusiasm to play it again once this blog post is up, if I'm being honest) The humour is a welcome addition but perhaps it keeps the listener at something of a distance. The subject of being out of work is one that a lot of people can identify with and it may cause us to crack jokes at our own expense as a coping mechanism but it isn't as funny thinking back on times when job opportunities weren't there. And it's worse when we try to think of what we could be doing if it were up to us. I put lots of work into this blog yet I'm not expecting to ever make anything from it. If only we could all just work on whatever made us happy.
Score: 7
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