Friday, September 11, 2015

The Rebel Black Dot Labor Song of the Day

Less Than Jake, "Last Hour of the Last Day of Work" from Borders & Boundaries (Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: Work possess an inherent dignity. Work is right & proper & ennobling. Alas, I was raised to believe something quite different, that work was to be resented & feared, & avoided whenever possible. Elsewhere, Less Than Jake have sung, "Money can't buy happiness/But it sure can pay the rent." Yet money should not, must not be our principal motivation for working. If it is, then all is lost.
"I can't help but think back to the,
The advice that I got from my dad,
He said, 'Time goes by so fast,
In the blink of an eye,
So never close your eyes.'
And I always wanted somethin',
Somethin' more than fifty hours every week
And a paid vacation on the Jersey shoreline!

"And he said,
'So when ambition turns into competition,
I'll never be the better man,
So when ambition turns into competition,
I'll never be the better man,' yeah!

"I can't help but think back to the,
To the time he said, 'Life goes right by,'
And he told me, 'Never think twice,
You can't second guess how you live your life,
All these years have been way too short,
To be spend on some factory floor like me.'
I never went back again,
I never looked back again.

"And he said,
'So when ambition turns into competition,
I'll never be the better man,
So when ambition turns into competition,
I'll never be the better man!'

"It's the last hour of the last day,
Don't fall so far behind now,
You'll be another nameless face.

"He said—
'So when ambition turns into competition,
I'll never be the better man,
'So when ambition turns into competition,
I'll never be the better man,
'So when ambition turns into competition,
I'll never be the better man,
'So when ambition turns into competition,
I'll never be the better man!'"

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