Labour & Pop Culture: Laying Pipe

In honour of Alberta’s efforts to expand the extraction of carbon-dense bitumen (thereby accelerating climate change) by forcing a pipeline through unceded Indigenous lands (so much for a more respectful relationship with Indigenous peoples), this week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Laying Pipe” by David Wilcox.

I can’t really think of a song that better sums up Alberta’s oil and gas industry and the degree to which Alberta's government is beholden to it. On one level, the song is about men working hard in blue-collar jobs (e.g., drilling for oil, installing sewers, making steel) in an industry where everybody they know also works:

My daddy worked construction
My brother too
He got me in the union
I'm payin' my dues

The job is tough and socially disruptive, but it has its rewards (a boy’s gotta eat, after all):

I don't mind working
If the money's okay
I take the night shift
I sleep all day

On another level, the song is a paean to misogyny—which is deeply embedded in the culture of the upstream oil-and-gas industry. The singer has a gold-digging women that he’s gotta keep in sparkly bobbles:

Oh but the woman I love
Has expensive taste
She's never satisfied
The latest things
A diamond ring
A car with an ultra-glide

Why?

Well, so he can get laid. The whole song is really a clumsy metaphor for screwing women (watch the video):

I'm layin' pipe all night long
Layin' pipe
I'm workin' so hard
I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
To satisfy that woman

As long as one’s getting some, who cares about anything else? Which pretty much sums up Alberta’s efforts to force a pipeline through BC.



My daddy worked construction
My brother too
He got me in the union
I'm payin' my dues

Oh but the woman I love
Has expensive taste
She's never satisfied
The latest things
A diamond ring
A car with an ultra-glide

I work so hard
Payin' for all that stuff
Eight shifts a week
It's never enough

I'm layin' pipe all night long
Layin' pipe
I'm workin' so hard
I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
To satisfy that woman

I don't mind working
If the money's okay
I take the night shift
I sleep all day

Dust and mud is in my blood
Underground cable in my way
I punch a clock and start my rig
Don't know how deep I might have to dig

I wish I had a million dollars
To buy her everything she needs
She'd only come back for more and more and more and more and more and more and more

I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
I'm working so hard
I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
To satisfy that woman

I put the pipe in
I pull it out again
My back is so sore
I can't work much more
I can't get my traction
The ground's too wet
I take a ten minute break
Ah smoke a cigarette
I don't mind the night shift
The cool breeze when the sun goes down
Winter time the ground is hard
Take twice as long to drill down

I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
I'm working so hard
I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
To satisfy that woman

-- Bob Barnetson