Nice Work If You Can Get It
Hey, it's Sheena Easton's birthday. Wonder what she's doing now?
Her first single in the U.S. was also her biggest hit, "Morning Train." Released in Britain as "9 To 5," Dolly Parton was already using that title over here, so they changed it.
Both songs went to #1, but the difference in the lyrics is instructive. They start with the female protagonist stumbling out of bed, but that's where the similarity ends.
In Dolly's world, she goes to a job that drives her crazy, where the boss man is forever keeping her down and shattering her dreams. Sheena, on the other hand, stays home all day while her husband goes into the world, works hard, and makes a lot of money. When he returns, she helps him spend it. In fact, there's only one thing she explicitly does, and apparently it's enough to keep the deal going.
If I'd been a young woman in the early 80s, I wonder which path would have sounded better?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
3 Comments:
"Morning Train" was a hit during my first year in college- in a small rural town in NW PA with limited radio especially with the college station under repair. [Though in certain weather conditions we could pick up WMMS-FM from Cleveland -at the time anointed by Rolling Stone as the best rock station in the country]
Anyway the only clear station was a heavy rotation hits station out of Youngstown(?) and of course the radio was always on somewhere and though I heard that damn Sheena Easton song close to 1 million times I never interpreted it the way LA Guy did. I thought it was about a really annoying girl who liked trains (one hears but doesn't listen).
Of course, this along with the Air Supply songs, "Lookin' for Love (In All the Wrong Places)" prepared me for toddler's fascination with Barney songs 18 years later
Geez, guys. Maybe you should change the name of the blog to OpenGownGuy.
I was a young woman then. I found the Sheena Easton song annoying at best. The Dolly Parton song was much more progressive, even if told from a working class point of view.
Post a Comment
<< Home