Friday Tunes: JCB

This week’s installment of labour themes in popular culture is Nizlopi’s "JCB". The song is written from the perspective of a young boy travelling with his dad in his JCB (a “front-end loader” in Canada). I picked it because it speaks to the role that parents play in exposing their children to work.

In the song, the singer is recollecting how much he enjoyed spending the day with his father and away from school. Such an opportunity is relatively rare today. But the strict segregation of kids into age-stratified cohorts where learning occurs with little interaction with the real world is (historically speaking) a recent phenomenon.

I recall spending six weeks on the road with my dad (who collected hydrometric data for Water Survey Canada) during the teacher strike of 1980. Seeing what he actually did for a living while he was “on the road” (and driving through the ash cloud from the Mount St Helen’s eruption) made a powerful impression.

Thirty-five years later, the compromises (e.g., hours of work and safety) that necessary for him to complete his job at remote worksites also helps ground my academic study of work. The picture above is a cable-way: you ride in the car out over the river to do flow rate calculations. This is a pretty tame example—the ones I recall from southern Alberta were way, way, waaaaay higher up, there was no safety harness and usually they were working alone long before there were cell phones!



Well I'm rumbling in this JCB,
I'm 5 years old and my dad's a giant,
Sitting beside me,

And the engine rattles my bum like bazzerk,
While we're singing,
Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work.

And my dad's probably had a bloody hard day,
But he's been good fun and bubblin and joking away,
And the procession of cars stuck behind,
Are getting more impatient and angry but we don't mind.

And we're holding up the bypass,
Oh-oh,
We and my dad havin' a top laugh
Oh-oh-oh,
And I'm sitting on the tool box,
Oh-oh,
And I'm so glad I'm not in school boss,
So glad I'm not in school,
Oh no-oo.

And we pull over to let cars past,
And pull off again speeding by this summer green grass,
And we're like giants up here in our big yello digger,
Like zoids or transformers or maybe even bigger,
I wanna transform into a Tyrannosaurus Rex,
And eat up all the bullies and the teachers and their pets,
And I'll tell all my mates,
My dad's B.A.Baracus,
Only with a JCB, and Bruce Lee's numchuckers...

And we're holding up the bypass,
Oh-oh,
me and my dad having a top laugh,
Oh-oh-oh,
And I'm sitting on the tool box,
Oh-oh,
And I'm so glad I'm not in school boss,
So glad I'm not in school,
Oh no.

And we're holding up the bypass,
Oh-oh,
me and my dad having a top laugh,
Oh-oh-oh,
And I'm sitting on the tool box,
Oh-oh,
And I'm so glad I'm not in school boss,
So glad I'm not in school,
Oh no.

Said I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around-

And we're holding up the bypass,
Oh-oh,
Me and my dad having a top laugh,
Oh-oh-oh,
And I'm sitting on the toolbox,
Oh-oh,
And I'm so glad I'm not in school boss,
So glad I'm not in school,
Oh no.

Said I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB.

-- Bob Barnetson