Labour & Pop Culture: Manic Monday

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Manic Monday” by the Bangles. Written by Prince, this song chronicles the life of working woman who wakes up Monday morning and wishes it were still the weekend.

You can see why. She has a long commute to work and, as we see near the end of the song, she’s paying the freight for both of them while he is unemployed and depressed about it.

Perhaps not the deepest song ever written about employment. But it captures the sense of work as a treadmill that we might prefer to step off.



Six o'clock already
I was just in the middle of a dream
I was kissin' Valentino
By a crystal blue Italian stream
But I can't be late
'Cause then I guess I just won't get paid
These are the days
When you wish your bed was already made

It's just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
'Cause that's my fun day
My I don't have to run day
It's just another manic Monday

Have to catch an early train
Got to be to work by nine
And if I had an air-o-plane
I still couldn't make it on time
'Cause it takes me so long
Just to figure out what I'm gonna wear
Blame it on the train
But the boss is already there

It's just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
'Cause that's my fun day
My I don't have to run day
It's just another manic Monday

All of the nights
Why did my lover have to pick last night
To get down
Doesn't it matter
That I have to feed the both of us
Employment's down
He tells me in his bedroom voice
C'mon honey, let's go make some noise
Time it goes so fast
(When you're having fun)

It's just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
'Cause that's my fun day
My I don't have to run day
It's just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
'Cause that's my fun day
It's just another manic Monday

-- Bob Barnetson