#11 Everybody Get a F-cking Day Job

Davemn, CC BY 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

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I was going to say this is a song that operates on multiple levels, but that’s true of the majority of songs most songwriters write. That’s not a meaningful distinction. If I wanted to tell a straightforward story or recount a series of events, writing a song would be a really inefficient way of doing that. However, a song is fairly efficient at conveying bigger abstractions, meta-narratives, or truths that don’t lend themselves to linear narratives. Take a whimsical tune like Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Going Nowhere.” I think I understand what this song means, but it would be very difficult to explain it to you. My explanation would be much longer than the original song and would ultimately fall short of the full meaning. Bob Dylan found a remarkably efficient way to convey whatever it was he was trying to express.

Since I have a degree in mathematics, it occurred to me that there is a mathematical analogy here. I couldn’t quite find the right one, so I asked a friend who is better with these things. Here’s what she said:

It’s a bit like the concept of multiple orders of infinity in mathematics—how some infinities are larger than others, even though both are endless in their own way. The ideas and emotions expressed in a song can be infinite in depth and resonance, encompassing layers of meaning, memory, and association that can’t be fully captured by the more countable, sequential “infinity” of linear language. Trying to translate a song’s meaning into prose is like trying to line up all the infinite points on the continuum between 0 and 1, with the infinite counting numbers: you can map some of it, but there’s always a vastness left over—something untranslatable and uncontainable. Songs, then, are a higher order of expressive infinity—able to hold contradictions, ambiguities, and emotional truths that linear explanation can only ever approximate, never fully enclose.

“Everybody Get a Fucking Day Job” operates on many levels. On one level, it’s a direct reaction to the COVID shutdowns. I wrote this in early May 2020, after all shows were canceled and everyone in the live music business suddenly needed a day job, which, in music speak, means a job outside the music industry. Like many families impacted by the lockdowns, my wife and I lost 80% of our income. Ironically, Cracker was in Alaska on March 13, 2020, and probably played one of the last shows in the US due to the time zone. May was a dark time. It was clear there was no way to stop the spread of the virus, but there was little sense of whether the effects could be mitigated or contained. The damage to society and the economy was unclear, and most people were quite pessimistic. This song expresses that pessimism, delivered with some fatalistic humor.

On another level, it’s about what happens when a band breaks up. A blunt, comical accounting of what happens when the party is over. The tour van sputters to a halt. There’s no more money coming in. The label’s tour support ends, the recording advances disappear, and in the case of Camper Van Beethoven, because we breached the terms of our tour support agreement, our royalties also stopped (at least until the tour support deficit was recouped by songwriting royalties). Everybody has to get a job. Some of us waited tables. Others tended bar. It’s quite the comedown. And while this might feel like the biggest insult—especially if your identity is wrapped up in being a musician who can draw an adoring audience—it’s not the biggest insult.

The biggest insult is yet to come. It’s when you move on to your next project or new band. You might even manage a new record deal, and it’s possible you can get a few people to care, but unless you are extraordinarily lucky, as the song says, “Sorry man, no one gives a shit.” The song is a reminder that the magic of a band is often greater than the sum of its parts. Alone, we’re just people again, stripped of the collective identity that made us special. This isn’t meant to be bitter, no, it’s about embracing humility, finding dignity in starting over, and discovering resilience and humor in disappointment. It’s about embracing the ordinary after chasing the extraordinary, so that one day you might use the experience to reinvent yourself.

Everybody get a fucking day job
None of you are better than the rest
Everybody get a fucking day job
Wait tables tend bar
Push a broom wash a car
Everybody get a job
Apple Store Genius Bar

Everybody get a fucking day job
Sorry man no one gives a shit
Everybody get a fucking day job
Paint houses spread tar
Web design teach guitar
Everybody get a job
Apple store, Genius Bar

Everybody get a fucking day job
In the universe you’re just a tiny speck
Everybody get a fucking day job
Wait tables tend bar
Push a broom wash a car
Everybody get a job
Apple store Genius Bar

Everybody get a fucking day job
You are not as good as you have all been told
Everybody get a fucking day job
Paint houses spread tar
Web design teach guitar
Everybody get a job
Apple store Genius Bar

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David Lowery: guitars and vocals
Luke Moller: violins and viola
Velena Vego: claps and castanets