Labour & Pop Culture: Tuesday

This week’s installment of labour and popular culture focuses on ILoveMakonnen’s “Tuesday”—a contemporary song about the weekend. Last week, we looked at The Clash’s take on the weekend in 1977. Not much has changed in this 2014 song except that the experience of the weekend is fragmenting in the new labour market:

Ain't got no motherfuckin' time to party on the weekend
Tell Gelo, "Bring the juice, we about to get lit"
Fill the room up with some "tings", one night off and this is it
Always workin' OT, overtime and outta town
Shit is crazy back home, it kills me that I'm not around

Now we probably not feel too sorry for Drake and his success, but as a comment on the impact of precarious work, this song has some legs. It touches on themes of separation and work schedule pushing workers out of sync with their friends and their social supports.

ILoveMakonnen reports similar working conditions for the self-employed (in this case, drug dealers):

Workin' Monday night, on the corner flippin' hard
Made at least 3 thousand, on the boulevard
I've been workin' graveyard shifts every other weekend
Ain't got fuckin' time to party on the weekend

That artists are flagging the convergence of employment terms in both formal and informal sectors is interesting. If employers are alienating formal workers by subjecting them to employment conditions once reserved for drug dealers and sex workers, what does this mean for worker commitment and employer’s ability to turn the capacity to work (which is what employers purchase with wages) into actual work?



[Hook x4:]
Club goin' up, on a Tuesday
Got your girl in the cut and she choosey

[Verse 1 - Drake:]
Squad goin' up, nobody flippin' packs now
I just did 3 in a row, them shows is back-to-back to back now
Put the world on our sound, you know PARTY and The Weeknd
Ain't got no motherfuckin' time to party on the weekend
Tell Gelo, "Bring the juice, we about to get lit"
Fill the room up with some "tings", one night off and this is it
Always workin' OT, overtime and outta town
Shit is crazy back home, it kills me that I'm not around
I think we gettin' too deep; shit I'm talkin' might be too true
Upstairs I got xan's in an Advil bottle, I don't take them shits
But you do, so I got 'em for you
I don't need the pills, I'm just gon' have another drink
And when I'm puttin' work in on a weekend
I'll look back on this and think how we had the club going up

[Hook x4]

[Verse 2 - ILoveMakonnen:]
Workin' Monday night, on the corner flippin' hard
Made at least 3 thousand, on the boulevard
I've been workin' graveyard shifts every other weekend
Ain't got fuckin' time to party on the weekend
I've been flippin' in the house, makin' juugs on the highway
I've been ridin' out of state, makin' money like my way
I don't think that I should dance, I'm just gon' have another drink
I'm doin' my stance, you know my molly pink
I got the loudest of the loud, you know my gas stink
My P.O. think I'm in the house, don't give a damn 'bout what she think

[Hook x4]

[Bridge - ILoveMakonnen:]
And I know I know how I made it on my own
I made my own style, I don't think that I should stay
You know I gotta' go, you're moving too fast
Don't wanna take it slow

[Hook x4]

-- Bob Barnetson