[20] Both of those numbers delivered what Billboard magazine termed, in the "Youngstown" case, "the night's killer Nils Lofgren solo". The song has also been covered by Kenny Greco, Blue Moon Rising, Show Of Hands, The Stairwell Sisters, Steve Strauss and Matthew Ryan. [3] The stories of dying steel towns inspired "Youngstown" and the stories of boxcar hobos inspired "New Timer". A live performance from the Hard Rock Calling show on that tour was included on the 2010 DVD London Calling: Live in Hyde Park. No matter how hard he works, the company always makes sure he's a little further behind. It was a featured song on the 1999–2000 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour, starting a five-song sequence (that also included "Murder Incorporated", "Badlands", "Out in the Street" and "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out") that anchored the middle of almost every show. Work Song Lyric: "We were poor, but we had love. We have focused the Stainless steel material and surface finish decoration Stainless steel sheet, for example Hairline, Satin (No.4), supper Mirror, Etching, cross Hairline and so on. Work Song Lyric: "Why's the rich man busy dancing, while the poor man pays the band? "[14], The song was popular in Youngstown itself, getting frequent local radio airplay and generating brisk sales of The Ghost of Tom Joad. Aaron Tippin doesn't need a college diploma. The unexpected but wholly deserved shower of acclaim over Dark Energy, the debut full-length by Gary, Indiana-based producer Jlin, resulted in one of electronic music's most inspiring success stories of the mid-2010s. "[3] With "Youngstown", he managed to trace the rise of America as an industrial power, and the subsequent breaking of its social contract. Lord have mercy on the working man!". [9][10] An editor at The Youngstown Vindicator said that town reaction split into three camps: "Some people are taking this as, 'Yea Youngstown! They just used your mind and they never give you credit. Something In The AirThunderclap Newman. [3][11] Journey to Nowhere chronicled the story of middle class Americans who lost their jobs and had become hobos riding freight trains like in the Great Depression. Here it was heavily rearranged into a hard rock vehicle, with pounding drums from Max Weinberg and a fiery guitar solo from Nils Lofgren. This great country song from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band paints a stirring portrait of a man who, after losing his job, feels completely abandoned by the world. Six unemployed steel workers form a male striptease act. [3] Although he describes the job as one "that would suit the devil well," it is enough to put food on the table, pay his debts and provide a sense of purpose. Jaunty music and depressing lyrics are part of the curious magic of this classic from early country artist Tennessee Ernie Ford. Work Song Lyric: "I'll be working long as my two hands are fit to use. [2], The song tells the tale of the rise and fall of Youngstown, Ohio, over several generations, from the discovery of iron ore nearby in 1803 through the decline of the steel industry in the area in the 1970s. "[3] Towards the end of the song, the scope expands beyond Youngstown to other areas that were devastated by the decline of the steel industry, including the Monongahela Valley, Minnesota's Mesabi iron range and Appalachia.[3]. Men of Steel: Three Generations of Mill Workers For Ken Kobus, his family's history is linked to steel. [10][11] Afterward, Springsteen was relieved that the performance had gone over well and changed his travel plans to stay an extra day and visit historic sites in the area. [13], No singles were released from the album in the United States, but "Youngstown" was the song that Columbia Records most pitched to album oriented rock radio stations. Glazer opens the album with Woody Guthrie’s hit song “Pittsburgh” and sings of other poignant moments in steel unions’ history, including the gut-wrenching tale of the “Memorial Day Massacre” (Earl Robinson) where ten men were shot and killed by police while … WORKING TIME. It appeared a few times during the band's 2007–2008 Magic Tour. The list of organisations above covers steel producers, fabricators, distributors, traders, consultants, information providers, trade associations, equipment supply firms and other suppliers as at Q4 2020. Merle Haggard has a lot of great songs about working, including the incendiary "A Workin' Man Can't Get Nowhere Today" (which I nearly included), but this is the classic that slightly edges out the competition. [15] Springsteen introduced "Youngstown" at that show by saying, "This is about the men and women who lived in this town and who built this country. Work Song Lyric: "You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Dolly Parton rails against the glass ceiling in this crossover hit that percolates to life with the sound of typewriters as the singer gets ready to face another day at the office. Mechanics, waitresses, farmers, police officers, and Detroit auto workers (that remain! Work Song Lyric: "Hello Pittsburgh steel mill worker, let me thank you for your time. Written by Ian Tyson, Someday Soon has been recorded by Judy Collins, Suzy Bogguss and many others and has charted in pop, folk and country. She's written a book about her journey — including its dangers and what she learned about the mill … He's already a graduate of a very different sort of school. [18] Greg Kot of Rolling Stone said of it that "Nils Lofgren's six-string rave-up drops a bomb on the relatively sedate studio version. Interestingly, she wrote the tune by using her long fingernails as a makeshift washboard. He later moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where he worked at a steel mill. "Youngstown" is a song by Bruce Springsteen from his 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad. Head of the Carnegie Steel Works, Andrew Carnegie was called the 'Richest Man in the World.' [10], The reception to the Youngstown performance was not unique; whenever Springsteen played the song in the Midwest during the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, audiences kept quite still. He shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar.". But he soon realizes he's far from alone. Under the mill's orange flame she finds hope for the unity of America. "[11] [10] During the visit he was given the key to the city by Mayor Patrick Ungaro. I need a job for these two hands. During the fourth quarter of 2020, SSAB announced that it was in discussions with Tata Steel concerning a possible acquisition of the IJmuiden steel mill and related downstream assets. "9 to 5" appeared in the comedy of the same name, and earned Parton an Oscar nomination for Best Song. Songs about working are a staple in country music. You work a forty hour week for a livin', just to send it on down the line." Eliese Goldbach turned to a local steel mill in Ohio as a way to earn money after college. It's enough to make you crazy if you let it.". Alas, "as the nation goes, so steel goes" is how things work in the steel industry. "Workin' Man (Nowhere To Go)" - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, "Forty Hour Week (For a Livin')" - Alabama, "Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man" - Travis Tritt, A List of History's Best Country Gospel Songs, Country's Top 10 Most Influential Artists, The Top 10 Classic Female Country Singers, Top 20 Country Music Love Songs of the 1980s, The 10 Best Inspirational Country Music Songs, "Take This Job and Shove It" - Johnny Paycheck. Although many of the songs on the album were performed by Springsteen solo, the lineup for "Youngstown" includes Soozie Tyrell on violin, Jim Hanson on bass, Gary Mallaber on drums, co-producer Chuck Plotkin on keyboards, and Marty Rifkin on pedal steel guitar. In it, a factory worker finally gives his boss man what's been coming to him for years. In honor of Labor Day, here's 20 of the finest "work" songs. Also in the hard rock vein was his next group, Child (soon renamed Steel Mill), which featured keyboard player Danny Federici and drummer Vini Lopez. But don't despair. With the holidays just around the corner, nearly 500 employees The songs does not imply that the people in the mill town were "losers" but were the unfortunate generation caught between the inudstrial heyday of the massive, all employing steel mills, and of the current era of endless vacant dusty lots that those giant mills once inhabited. Work Song Lyric: "As a matter of fact I'd like to set things straight: A few more people should be pullin' their weight. Tried hard to borrow but there was no help; now I've got nowhere to go. Bishop Gunn recorded their first EP in Leipers Fork at producer Casey Wasner ’s studio, The Purple House, and it was self-released on own label Farm2Turntable in February 2016. If you wanna cram course in reality, you get yourself a working man's Ph.D.". With Robert Carlyle, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Addy, Wim Snape. [3][6] When the mill is shut down, he tells the owners that "Once I made you rich enough/Rich enough to forget my name." MON–SAT：08:00–18:00. Pete Townshend never had a #1 UK hit with The Who or as a solo artist, but he did produce and play on a song that hit the top spot there: "Something In The Air" by Thunderclap Newman, a … The song is set to a sparse melody. "[9], Springsteen made a point of playing Youngstown's Stambaugh Auditorium in January 1996 during the solo acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad Tour,[15] and tickets for the 2,600-seat venue were sold in record time. [22], decline of the steel industry in the area in the 1970s, Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, Voices of a People's History of the United States, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Live in New York City, "Brucebase, On the Tracks: The Ghost of Tom Joad", "Where steel was once king: Springsteen song resonates in Ohio Valley", "Bruce Springsteen (1996): Reborn in the U.S.A.", "Show a Little Faith, Still Magic in the Night", "Boss exhibit takes fans back to the glory days", "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss", "Born to Run, or at Least to Be Redeemed", "Live In New York City by Bruce Springsteen", "Bruce Springsteen, Wilco Soar At Bonnaroo", The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, Wachovia Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA 10/20/09, The Live Series: Songs from Around the World, The Born in the U.S.A. 12" Single Collection, The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story, The Complete Video Anthology / 1978–2000, The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town, Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Youngstown_(song)&oldid=1004042071, Song recordings produced by Bruce Springsteen, Song recordings produced by Chuck Plotkin, Articles with dead external links from October 2010, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz work identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 31 January 2021, at 20:50. [8] The narrator of the song himself is a Vietnam War veteran (continuing Springsteen's fixation with that war, also evident in songs such as "Born in the U.S.A." and "Lost in the Flood") and his father fought in World War II. And you're 50 and gotta find something else to do. "[10] He added that "You get into tricky territory when you write a song about someone's hometown. [4] Despite the town's history, when it became uneconomical to keep the steel mills in Youngstown going, they were shut down, thus doing "what Hitler couldn't do," to the devastation of the community. Work Song Lyric: "Manual labor you, you old back breaker you. Work Song Lyric: "Ya better not try and stand in my way, cause I'm walkin' out the door. It's about [the people] who gave their sons and daughters to the wars that were fought ... and who were later declared expendable. You don't want to get it wrong. Born to a poor family in Scotland, Carnegie emigrated to the U.S., working in a textile mill and a telegraph office before moving up through the ranks at the Pennsylvania Railroad. "[19], "Youngstown" was a regular during the opening stretch of Springsteen's 2005 solo acoustic Devils & Dust Tour, before being dropped from the setlist. A coal miner is caught in an endless cycle of servitude and debt. This 2009 video features Ian singing it and you can see Suzys version HERE. Unless you’re stuck in a cubicle, play ‘em at an unreasonable volume. Some people are taking it as a real vindication of the working man. We have passed the ISO9001 and ISO14001, and applied the brand of “SUNSONG”in same year. [4], Writing for The New York Times Magazine, author Nicholas Dawidoff said that "Youngstown" was the best song on the album and was an example of "best of his songs [which] have all the tension and complexity of great short fiction. [12] Activist historian Howard Zinn included the lyrics of the song in his 2004 book, Voices of a People's History of the United States. You can't get away from that daily work, but you'll probably feel a whole lot better after listening to these songs about being on the job. In the race for number one on the Fortune 500 list, "The Corporation", as it was known as by the competition, was known as "Little Steel" and was second only to "Big Steel" - U.S. Steel (USX). In 1968, he earned a BA from Fresno State College, where he studied with Philip Levine. “I’ve never been on welfare,” sings Haggard proudly. I ain't working here no more.". Steel: From Mine to Mill, the Metal that Made America answers these questions. Finally, he prays that "the devil comes and takes me/To stand in the fiery furnace of hell. One of the most moving songs on “Modern Times” is a stately lament called “Workingman’s Blues #2.” The title targets Merle Haggard’s 1969 hit about working men stopping off in the tavern on the way home from work to celebrate their solidarity and the dignity of honest labor. Barely getting by, it's all take and no giving. Steel Mill played in California in 1969, drawing a rave review in San Francisco and even a contract offer from a record label. expansion between steel and mill scale. [14] The effort met with little success; as one station program director remarked, "Yeah, that'll get everybody up and dancing. Songfacts category - Songs about racism or discrimination. One woman's story of working in the backbreaking steel industry to rebuild her life―but what she uncovers in the mill is much more than molten metal and grueling working conditions. Stainless steel, 2B, Hairline, Mirror, Etching. The narrator had worked himself up to the job of scarfer, a difficult but low-paying job that entails torching the steel to remove imperfections. [5] It tells of how in the Civil War, Youngstown made the cannonballs that helped the Union prevail. Robert Silva is an electronics and audiophile hobbyist who writes about entertainment technology and films for more than 20 years.