Labour & Pop Culture: White Collar Hollar

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “White Collar Hollar” by Stan Rogers. The song is sung as a field holler (sometimes called a field call), historically sung by workers and slaves, which is an unusual style to hear these days.

The song (unusually) recounts and critiques the experience of a harried data wonk (using now antiquated 1970s terminology).

Then it's code in the data, give the keyboard a punch
Then cross-correlate and break for some lunch
Correlate, tabulate, process and screen
Program, printout, regress to the mean

The song is notable because it touches on the quiet desperation of white-collar workers (most class conscious songs tend to be about blue- and pink-collar jobs). Interesting, the worker’s dreams remain the same: freedom from the grind.

Someday I'm gonna give up all the buttons and things
I'll punch that time clock till it can't ring
Burn up my necktie and set myself free
Cause no'one's gonna fold, bend or mutilate me.

Well, I rise up every morning at a quarter to eight
Some woman who's my wife tells me not to be late
I kiss the kids goodbye, I can't remember their names
And week after week, it's always the same

And it's Ho, boys, can't you code it, and program it right
Nothing ever happens in the life of mine
I'm hauling up the data on the Xerox line

Then it's code in the data, give the keyboard a punch
Then cross-correlate and break for some lunch
Correlate, tabulate, process and screen
Program, printout, regress to the mean

Then it's home again, eat again, watch some TV
Make love to my woman at ten-fifty-three
I dream the same dream when I'm sleeping at night
I'm soaring over hills like an eagle in flight

Someday I'm gonna give up all the buttons and things
I'll punch that time clock till it can't ring
Burn up my necktie and set myself free
Cause no'one's gonna fold, bend or mutilate me.

-- Bob Barnetson