Friday Tunes: Slave to the Grind

This week’s installment of labour themes in popular culture is Skid Row’s “Slave to the Grind” (cause who doesn’t like hair metal?). Melodically and visually a bit uninspired (yay, another warehouse video complete with steel cage), Slave to the Grind was nonetheless a huge hit, speaking as it did to the economic hopelessness of 1991.

The lyrics focus on the singer’s rejection of being forced to do something (e.g., work in a dead-end job) that he doesn’t want to do:

You got me forced to crack my lids in two
I'm still stuck inside this rubber room
I gotta punch the clock that leads the blind
I'm just another gear in the assembly line - oh no

Although perhaps unknowingly, lead singer Sebastian Bach is talking about the commodifcation of labour: essentially he’s forced to sell his time to put food on the table and it sucks. Apparently he has some sort of plan that doesn’t include accepting his place within capitalism (“You might beg for mercy to get by/But I'd rather tear this thorn from my side”), but alas he doesn’t share the secret and instead declares “You talk verbal insecticide” (which seems like a rather desperate rhyme).



You got me forced to crack my lids in two
I'm still stuck inside this rubber room
I gotta punch the clock that leads the blind
I'm just another gear in the assembly line - oh no

The noose gets tighter around my throat
But I ain't at the end of my rope 'cause

[CHORUS]
I won't be the one left behind
Can't be king of the world
If you're slave to the grind
Tear down the rat racial slime
Can't be king of the world
If you're slave to the grind

Get it?

A routine injection, a lethal dose
But my day in the sun ain't even close
There's no need to waste your prayers on me
You better mark my words 'cause I'm history

Yes indeed
You might beg for mercy to get by
But I'd rather tear this thorn from my side

[CHORUS]

They swallowed their daggers by turning their trick
They tore my intentions apart brick by brick
I'm sick of the jive
You talk verbal insecticide

They swallowed their daggers by turning their trick
They tore my intentions apart brick by brick
I'm sick of the jive
You talk verbal insecticide

[CHORUS]

I said slave to the grind
Slave to the grind
Slave to the grind

-- Bob Barnetson