Water Cooler Rock: 12 Songs About Office Work

This pair of LED desk lamps with built-in USB charging ports are really useful to keep on your desk, maybe at your office job. They’re less helpful as a subject for compiling a playlist about.

Hey, Meh contributor @JasonToon here. Songs about shitty jobs are as old the blues, as rock ‘n’ roll as “Summertime Blues”, and de rigeur in punk rock. But songs about shitty office jobs are much rarer. Young, aspiring musicians tend to work the kinds of jobs they can do while hungover and/or stoned. And offices are boring, devoid of the kind of drama that makes for mythic songs. Would anybody care about John Henry if he was a spreadsheet-fillin’ man?

But I managed to round up a dozen musical takes on the office life, so here I am to bum out your Sunday with a weekend playlist of office songs, also compiled in a YouTube playlist. I won’t blame you if you want to save this one for Monday morning.

Dolly Parton - “9 to 5” (1980)
No avoiding the obvious: one of the greatest songs about office work from one of the greatest movies about office work.

The Rakes - “22 Grand Job” (2005)
That’s “22 grand” in British pounds, so, like $40k - the going rate for a recent young graduate’s soul, is the implication there.

The Modern Lovers - “Government Center” (1972)
“They got a lotta lotta lotta nice desks and chairs.” Meh’s own @matthew and I used to play this one together in our old band the Red Squares.

Blur - “Yuko and Hiro” (1995)
Blur ended and transcended their Britpop-laddish period with this synthetic, sad salaryman saga.

R.B. Greaves - “Take a Letter Maria” (1969)
The workaholic protagonist of this song isn’t wasting any time moving on after finding his wife with another man: hey, secretary, now that you’ve taken dictation for my divorce papers, you free for dinner tonight?

The Aardvarks - “The Office No. 1” (1990)
If I hadn’t told you, would you believe this mod grumble was recorded in 1990?

Paul McCartney - “Temporary Secretary” (1980)
Liberated from Wings, Sir Paul goes all-in on twitchy New Wave, with a manic synth line like something from an old IBM commercial.

Lonely Island - “Like a Boss” (2009)
VERY NSFW and funny forever.

The Jam - “Smithers-Jones” (1980)
I prefer the rock-band version of Bruce Foxton’s office melodrama, but included the “symphonic” version because this list has lots of short-haired Brits with guitars.

Bis - “Beats at the Office” (2000)
The indie-pop brats go fake-rave to rally office drones secretly programming sick beats on the clock.

Statler Brothers - “Monday Morning Secretary” (1972)
A rare classic country work song for the working gals. “She unlocks the doors / and does so much more / than what she gets credit for.”

The Kinks - “When Work is Over” (1973)
Ray Davies wrote approximately nine thousand songs about frustrated office functionaries stiff-upper-lipping through lives of quiet desperation, but none more direct as this: “Drinking helps us to forget what we are / We leave the office and walk straight to the bar.”

Enjoy your Sunday - away from the office, I hope - and I’ll see you by the fax machine tomorrow morning. Why do we still have a fax machine, anyway?

Think outside the cubicle with our past weekend playlists:

• 13 Labor Day Songs More Working People Should Hear
• The Great, Departed Glen Campbell
• Hot, Black, and Strong: A Coffee Playlist
• Catwalk Rock: A Fashion Playlist
• Weekend playlist archive