Occupation songs (and Mid, the real word)
I didn't even see what the word was until I looked at the photo days later. "MID"!? Do we go with all forms like middle and midden and midday? Still... seems too short.
So let's double it and say either the third or sixth item.
And if anyone's keeping points, give one point for occupation, two points for "mid" and FIVE points for a passage of lyrics with "mid" and an occupation both.
54 comments:
I've been working on the railroad
All the ? long day...
I'm not sure what the word is that goes there...my dd says..."All Christmas Eve", but I think she's made it up : )
My occupation is being occupied. I stop at the corner to be identified.
- Blondie, War Child
Lovely Rita, [overworked] meter maid,
Where would I be without you?
Beatles
Here in the middle of imagination
Right in the middle of my head
I close my eyes and my room's not my room,
and my bed isn't really my bed...
Ernie (Jim Henson), "Imagination"
(I played it on "items of furniture," for the bed, and found myself typing "middle"!)
I got laid off down at the lumber yard. Our love went bad, times got hard. Now I work down at the car wash, where all it ever does is rain.
- Bruce Sprinsteen, Downbound Train
clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right .. here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
Stealers Wheel, Stuck in the middle with you
ria wrote:
All the ? long day
I think it's "live" as in "livelong."
In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Billy Joel, River of Dreams (?)
Chim chiminey
chim chiminey
chim chim cheree
a sweep is as lucky
as lucky can be!
Chim Chim Cheree from Disney's Mary Poppins
and I admit, I looked it up online to see how to spell....I know the words, but chiminey had me stumped...I was thinking, chimney? no that's not right....
Mid the pleasures and palaces
Though we may roam
Be it ever so humble
there's no place like home.
(and I've got the Grinch in my head singing it..."be it ever so heinous..."
Just a gigolo,
Everywhere I go,
People know the part I'm playing.
Paid for every dance,
Selling each romance,
Just a Gigolo...David Lee Roth
Roxanne you don't have to put on the red light
those days are over
you don't have to sell your body to the night
Roxanne...The Police
sadie the cleaning ladie
With trusty scrubbing brush and pail of water
Worked her fingers to the bone
Sadie...John Farnham
Well the doctor came in,
Stinking of gin,
And proceeded to lie on the table
"Rocky Racoon," The Beatles
A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
"Penny Lane," The Beatles
A long term contract I had to sign
Cause I'll be making these movies till the end of time
Yoda
Weird Al
You load sixteen tons what'ya get another day older and a deeper in debt St. Peter don't ya call me 'casue I can't go I owe my soul to the company stow.
-Tennessee Ernie Ford "Sixteen Tons"
And I need a job so I want to be a paperback writer....
Paperback writer by the Beatles
It was Gatlinburg in mid July
and I just hit town and my throat was dry
Boy named Sue (AGAIN!)
I recognized the face of my hibachi dealer...
"Everything you know is wrong" by Weird Al
Like a surgeon
Cuttin' for the very first time
Weird Al parody of "Like a Virgin"
Then I see it's a pimp and his crack whore
"LDN" by Lily Allen
I've been sleeping with a clown above my bed...
From "Way Back Into Love," accidentally sung wrong when it's being learned, from the movie Music and Lyrics
Ben Dewberry was a brave engineer
He told his fireman, "Don't you ever fear..."
from Ben Dewberry's Final Run (I think is the name; a trainwreck ballad)
from my husband...
the salesmen turned to close the blinds. a little slow now, a little stout.
and later in the song ..
a middle aged Madonna calls her neighbor on the phone.
and the last line ..
The dream in Middletown.
- Rush, Middletown Dreams
mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys. don't let them pick guitars and drive them old trucks, make them be doctors and lawyers and such.
- Willie Nelson, Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
I'm sorry I posted several in a row. I felt so bad I made a rule against me and posted it up top of the blog.
If I were a carpenter and you were a lady
Would you marry me anyway
Would you have my baby
I'm the piano player, down at Eddie's bar.
- Joshua Kadison, Picture Postcards from L.A.
Do you go to the Cat Scratch Club?
That's where I work; I dance.
(Mimi to Roger, in Rent)
The Decemberists really like writing songs about occupations! They have more than these, but I thought this was enough.
"And I am nothing of a builder
But here I dreamt I was an architect
And I built this balustrade
To keep you home, to keep you safe
From the outside world
But the angles and the corners
Even though my work is unparalleled
They never seemed to meet
This structure fell about our feet
And we were free to go"
- "Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect"
"I'm an engine driver
On a long run, on a long run
Would I were beside her
She's a long one, such a long one
And if you don't love me, let me go
And if you don't love me, let me go
I'm a county lineman
On a high line, on a high line
So will be my grandson
There are powerlines in our bloodlines
And if you don't love me, let me go
And if you don't love me, let me go
And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
My bones
My bones
I'm a moneylender
I have fortunes upon fortunes
Take my hand for tender
I am tortured, ever tortured
And if you don't love me, let me go
And if you don't love me, let me go
And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
I am a writer, I am all that you have home
Home
And I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
My bones
My bones
And if you don't love me, let me go
And if you don't love me, let me go"
- "The Engine Driver"
Reading over the other comments, I remembered the other meaning of occupation!
"Read it in the headlines
Watch it on the tv
Put it in the background
Stick it in the back
Stick it in the back
For the beautiful occupation
The beautiful occupation
Don't need an invitation
To drop in upon a nation"
Travis, "The Beautiful Occupation"
Mr. Baker can you tell us why your secretary had to leave this town?
- Dolly Parton, Harper Valley PTA
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses you've out riding fences for so long now
-The eagles "Desperado"
There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o.
Jen H.
The farmer in the dell, the farmer in the dell...
Jen H.
All around the cobbler's bench the monkey chased the weasel.
Jen H.
let's have a round for these freaks and these soldiers
"Carey," Joni Mitchell
every state line there's a new set of laws, and every policeman comes equipped with extended claws.
Ani Difranco, Every State Line
Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad
I'm hot for teacher
Hot for teacher
Van Halen
The section forman said, "Hey hammer swinger!"
Legend of John Henry
Johnny Cash
a barmaid came by in fishnet stockings and a bowtie...
"The Last Time I Saw Richard," Joni Mitchell
Well that ship was full of sin
And the sides about the burst
When the captain shouted
"Women and children first..."
The Titanic, traditional
Bob the builder,
Can we fix it ?
Bob the builder,
Yes we can !
from the tv show,I don't know who sings it
Doctor my eyes have seen the years and the slow parade of fears without crying, now I want to understand, I've done all I could to see the evil and the good without hiding, you must help me if you can.
- Jackson Browne, Doctor My Eyes
What could be better than this?
What could they possibly miss?
There's nothing out there
It's the middle of nowhere
"Circus" by GaiaWolf :-)
I met you on a midway at a fair last year
And you stood out like a ruby in a black man's ear
You were playing on the horses, you were playing on the guitar strings
You were playing like a devil wearing wings, wearing wings
"That Song About the Midway" by Joni Mitchell
I got a job working construction for the Johnstown company
But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy
"The River," by Bruce Springsteen
Doctor, doctor, give me the news,
I got a bad case of lovin' you...
(? someone, somewhere, sometime...)
More a chant than a song, but a jumprope rhyme we used LOTS when I was nine and ten and so, in northern New Mexico:
Cinderella, dressed in yello'
Went upstairs to kiss her fella
Made a mistake and kissed a snake
How many doctors did it take?
1, 2, 3, 4... (And then we'd jump until we missed, if we hadn't missed already during the rhyme)
Went to the doctor, the doctor said
Feel them babies on shortnin' bread
(I don't even know what "shortnin' bread" is, but I heard that song a badillion times when I was growing up. Maybe it's like a big biscuit in a cake pan. Maybe it's like shortbread?)
We could get married
Just the two of us
You could get a job
Driving a school bus
("I Love Ya Baby" from Cartoon Planet)
Getting born in the state of Mississippi
Papa was a copper and the mama was a hippie
"Dani California," by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Your temperament's wrong for the priesthood
And teaching would suit you still less
Son be a dentist
You'll be a success
Little Shop of Horrors
He worked the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf Coast Highway
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