DBT #381 Working For A Living

 

Mike Ward's song "Paycheck" from his most recent album "The Time That Remains" was the inspiration for this playlist, and as usual I am so thankful that it had me curating unlistened or barely listened music that I added to the digital library since January.  Truly no complaining; I'm just stating that I buy more music than I can listen to properly as one might say on Dowton Abbey.

1) Paycheck - Mike Ward

Psychosongs Mike captured growing up and getting sucked into making more; his recent album "The Time That Remains" is a gem of songwriting.

It’s the weight I got tied to
shackled sometimes lied to
the almighty buck a place i was stuck
sold my soul and self respect.
for that first paycheck

Too funny I looked for a paycheck picture for the post, and it's something that has faded away for so many people with direct deposit that even Adobe Stock photos showed me people looking at their phones.  Ha.

2) Black Tie Jobs - Mark Knopfler

Yes some times I buy mainstream music like "One Deep River" that just comes out, or well within a year.  

3) Farmer - Kristin Lems

I'm a broken record (boy I hat that expression) that these playlists ask me to review songs from new (and many times oldn releases) additions to the library and see what I'm missing to listen to.  Like this forceful statement of Woman Rights and Independence; Kristin takes charge of a widowed farmer wife.  I realize that this song should have taken me into my Stan Rogers collection, but instead I kept scrolling back through the recent additions.

4) Grey-Walled Office - Sage Christie

From a 70's feminist to a 20's trans, the fight for fairness continues.  Sage ramps up the rocking in this one too.

My boss went through assistants
Like a drunkard goes through beers
And every one of ’em came out
Needing counseling for years
Didn’t matter if you were pregnant
Or if your uncle died
You’d best be there in your creaky chair
Working unpaid overtime
In your little grey-walled office

Working people start to believe
We are what we earn
And we don’t wanna go hungry, so
We grit our teeth and get burned

If that was too loud for you (ha), here is Sage doing it acoustically.

5) Hard Working Women - Sparrow Smith

Here's Sparrow, from Resonant Rogues, singing a chorus only some women can sing:

Light me up just like the sun
I like my women, hard-working.
My men good looking.
And I can really get it done

Right there should be a story behind this and I so love Bandcamp when the artist decides to share it:

This song is the most fun! I wrote the whole thing on our 7 minute holler drive, thinking about what I’m drawn to in people. I have been happily married to a wonderful (good looking) man for a long time, but I am bisexual, which often feels invisible, especially in the context of leading a band together for so long. Being able to express this in a lighthearted song was an important part of showing my own individual identity outside of my partnership, which is a theme for this record. Cat and I sang the tune together on that Rare Bird visit and she is the perfect duet voice for this, adding just the right amount of rock and roll grit. Keith had a big hand in producing this song and giving it its jug band feel, with sousaphone (JP Furnas) and washboard- Keith played washboard in many well loved busking bands around the country before I met him 12 years ago.

While the playlist at the end will have a studio audio file, this short has too much winking not to share.

6) Workin' No More Blues - Robbie Fulks

Robbie is just done with it.

Here he is solo which is where he shines as a storyteller:

7) Work is Work - Willi Carlisle

Right this playlist is filled with people I saw live in concert this year.

8) Payday - Jesse Winchester

From his debut rookie self-titled release, which might be more about partying after a week of work.

9) I'm Selling Drugs Now Mom - The Matchsellers

Well it's a job; just like this blog post (though no paycheck ha)  16 Songs, what am I crazy, no I just like the adventure of finding the songs.  I almost saw this group 8 miles from my house at the Trempealeau Hotel, but I was 4 hours away.

10) I've Been Riding Fences - Martin Gilmore

If you are expecting a great cowboy story song from the title, here you go.  Freshly written by both a Kerrville New Folk and the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest songwriter contest winner.

While the studio version is wonderful mix of him and his guitar, this video puts a little wind in the mix.

11) Railroad Worksong - The Notting Hillbillies

A second appearance from Mark Knopfler in the playlist.  "Missing Presumed Having a Good Time" is a 1990 gem in the collection that I within the last year imported a few more songs.

12) Bethlehem Steel - Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan

I bought this gem from a Discogs seller, not sure why but no regrets at all.  Great debut rookie "Birds of a Feather" album from 1969.  It had their big hit, "Tennessee Bird Walk"  This song was written by Jack.

13) The Teacher Song - Hot Soup

Oh we know that those teachers work for a living for not enough pay, and Hot Soup put that nicely in a song.

14) The Beautiful Waitress - Austin Lounge Lizards

What you never heard of the ALL?  Probably not too surprising, so here's their Wikipedia page.  Waitress songs are probably my favorite, maybe a playlist in the future.  Poor boys they only saw this waitress once and seemingly fell in love.  Of course I felt that way once in Lawrenceville, so much that I penned "Allegheny Angel"

15) The Ferryman - Happy & Artie Traum

I bought this brotherly rookie debut "Double Back" back in January that on a road trip we happened to burn time by stopping at a great record store "Stardust Records" in Theinsville WI.   Wow, it took until song 15 to not be able to find a song on YouTube.  I fixed that for your enjoyment; and as it uploads here's an advertisement for Stardust and our Haunting of the blog.  Boy I wish I didn't live 4 hours away, their bargain bins were incredible, and the Haunting Volume Four has been curated, start at Volume Three and work backwards.

16) The Highwayman - Harpeth Rising

Boy I wish this trio would tour or just record something new again. Per Google:  "The song is a modern musical adaptation of Alfred Noyes' famous narrative poem of the same name, which tells the story of a highwayman and the innkeeper's daughter who sacrifices her life to warn him of danger."

Highwayman isn't a proud career, but it's a great story.

Yes... even if you didn't see a video above the song is still in this YouTube One Click playlist, but go ahead stop over to their Bandcamp page and buy the song.  It's a buck you don't need, and they add up for the artists.  Remember ONE Dollar would take listening to the song on Spotify 300 times.

Next steps:

- Stop over to the Review page to my other most spinned and loved albums.

- Browse the rest of the blogs by stopping at this "Theme Page."

- Enjoy Tune Tuesday which brings you one song from a past blog post.

- See what other post have been most popular recently with our Stats Page.

- Find out who in the world thinks he has the authority to write this blog in the About.

- Let me answer why you won't find the playlists on Spotify here.

- Finally, the Mission page explains why there is no advertising cluttering the page.

If you use Facebook, we have a page "Like" us there and it will help you remember to read the next post

You could always decide to feed my music addiction and donate to the cause.  If you did, I will spend it only on music and even will buy the music you recommend if you tell me to.  Here's a Paypal donate button

#MusicHasNoExpirationDate #bestunknownmusicblog #worksongs #paycheck #curatedplaylist #compilations