10 Best Rock Songs About Working

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Our 10 Best Rock Songs About Working presents a group of songs that look at working life from very different angles. Most people spend a huge part of their lives working, so it makes sense that rock and roll has returned to the subject again and again. Some of these songs celebrate the routine, while others focus on unemployment, frustration, exhaustion, class, and the dream of getting away from it all.

There is something strangely comforting about hearing musicians turn everyday work into great songs. Whether the subject is a factory, a car wash, a morning train, or the unemployment line, these records take ordinary experiences and make them feel larger. That is probably why songs about working have connected with so many people for so long.

# 10 – Working Man – Rush

We open our list with one of the most obvious classics, Rush’s “Working Man.” The song appeared on the band’s self-titled debut album in 1974 and featured Geddy Lee on bass and vocals, Alex Lifeson on guitar, and original drummer John Rutsey. That means this was before Neil Peart joined the band, and the recording still has a raw early-Rush sound that makes it stand out. The opening guitar riff became iconic, but the real reason the song belongs here is how directly it captures the feeling of spending most of your life working and wondering if there should be more.

# 9 – Workin’ For A Livin’ – Huey Lewis & The News

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I have always loved the video for this song, especially the way Chris Hayes and Johnny Colla jump forward with that guitar lick before Huey Lewis joins them. “Workin’ for a Livin'” appeared on Picture This in 1982 and was written by Huey Lewis and Chris Hayes. The song sounds like a band that really knew what it meant to work for small money in bars before finally breaking through. That feeling of paying your dues is what makes the song fit this list so well.

# 8 – Workin’ At The Car Wash Blues – Jim Croce

Jim Croce’s “Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues” is one of the funniest songs on this list because the guy in the story thinks he should be doing something far more important with his life. In reality, he is working at a car wash while imagining himself as somebody destined for much bigger things. The song appeared on I Got a Name, released in 1973, and was issued as a single in 1974 after Croce’s death. We all know somebody who thinks they were meant to run the world, which is why this song still works so well.

Read More: Top 10 Jim Croce Songs

# 7 – Welcome To The Working Week – Elvis Costello

Our favorite Elvis Costello album has always been his debut, My Aim Is True, released in 1977. “Welcome to the Working Week” opens the album and immediately establishes Costello’s sharp, sarcastic point of view. The song looks at work and social class with more irritation than celebration, which makes the title feel almost like a warning. It is short, fast, funny, and exactly the kind of song that makes starting another workweek sound slightly less painful.

# 6 – Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) – Styx

Styx fans would probably be upset if we left “Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)” off a list like this, and we would agree with them. The song appeared on Pieces of Eight in 1978 and was written by Tommy Shaw. Its narrator is not complaining about having to work because the real fear is being unable to find work at all. The hard-driving organ and guitar give that anxiety a huge arena-rock sound, making it one of Styx’s most powerful records.

Read More: Top 10 Styx Songs

# 5 – Out Of Work – Gary U.S. Bonds

At the halfway point is the first of two songs on this list written by Bruce Springsteen. “Out of Work” was recorded by Gary U.S. Bonds for the 1982 album On the Line, which Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt helped produce. The song turns unemployment into something immediate and personal, following a man who keeps looking for a job while dealing with the embarrassment and frustration that comes with being out of work. It reached number twenty-one on the Billboard Hot 100 and remains one of Springsteen’s best songs written for another artist.

Read More: Top 100 Bruce Springsteen Songs

# 4 – Factory Girl – The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones’ “Factory Girl” appeared on Beggars Banquet in 1968 and was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The song is built around a man waiting for a working girl, with the band giving the track a loose country and folk feel instead of a typical Stones rock arrangement. Mick Jagger later described songs like this one as country pastiche with a sense of humor. It is a very different kind of working song, but its everyday setting makes it a perfect fit for this list.

# 3 – Allentown – Billy Joel

Not every song has to include the word “work” to be about working life. Billy Joel’s “Allentown” appeared on The Nylon Curtain in 1982 and looks at the decline of industrial work in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. The song is about factories closing, blue-collar jobs disappearing, and a generation discovering that the promises they grew up with were no longer guaranteed. It was not written after Bethlehem Steel had completely shut down, but it captured the economic decline already reshaping communities around Allentown and Bethlehem.

# 2 – Working Class Hero – John Lennon

John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” appeared on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band in 1970 and is one of the darkest songs on this list. Rather than simply celebrating pride in an ordinary job, Lennon uses the song to attack the social pressures and class structures that shape people from childhood into adulthood. He later called it a revolutionary song and described it as a warning about the machinery that pushes working-class people toward a prescribed version of success. The stripped-down recording, with Lennon singing over acoustic guitar, makes the message feel even harsher and more direct.

# 1 – Tie: Factory – Bruce Springsteen / Takin’ Care Of Business – Bachman-Turner Overdrive

No other rock song has painted working life quite like Bruce Springsteen’s “Factory,” released on Darkness on the Edge of Town in 1978 and rooted in the kind of factory work his father knew firsthand. Tied with it is Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business,” released on Bachman-Turner Overdrive II in 1973, a song that contrasts the daily commute with the working life of a musician. Every time I take the Long Island Rail Road, I hear that BTO song playing in my head and wonder how many other commuters do the same thing. One song looks hard at what work can take out of a person, while the other turns the whole routine into a giant rock and roll anthem.