Songs About Quitting Your Job

Ten resignation letters with a backbeat, none of them giving two weeks' notice.

Entries
10
Category
Music
Updated
  1. A car wash bay with a dripping sponge, a soapy bucket and a leather executive briefcase set on top of it.

    10. Workin' at the Car Wash Blues

    Jim Croce · 1974

    An ex-con who considers himself an undiscovered Howard Hughes can't land an executive job and ends up hosing down cars, daydreaming about the boardroom. It peaked at No. 32, his last top 40 hit. Quitting is still on the table. So is the sponge.

  2. A coal mine entrance with a pickaxe, a lantern and a heavily loaded mine cart on rails.

    09. Sixteen Tons

    Tennessee Ernie Ford · 1955

    Merle Travis's 1946 coal-mining song about owing so much to the company store you can't afford to quit. Ford's version went to No. 1 and sold a million copies fast. The prequel to every other song here, explaining why nobody could leave.

  3. A snare drum and sticks on a football field end zone, confetti falling from a snowy sky.

    08. Bang the Drum All Day

    Todd Rundgren · 1983

    A man who would rather drum than work, play or go to school, stated plainly. It only reached No. 63, but the Green Bay Packers have played it after touchdowns since 1995. The most successful quitting song is now a workplace anthem for Wisconsin.

  4. A commuter train pulling into a station platform at 8:15 by the clock, with an amplifier and guitar case left on a bench.

    07. Takin' Care of Business

    Bachman-Turner Overdrive · 1973

    Randy Bachman contrasts commuters catching the 8:15 with musicians who get paid to play and sleep in. It became one of the most licensed songs in advertising, which means it now mostly soundtracks the office jobs it was mocking.

  5. A leather jacket, a jukebox and an electric guitar bursting into flames on a dark soundstage.

    06. Freedom! '90

    George Michael · 1990

    A resignation from being a pop idol, filed with Sony. In David Fincher's video he refused to appear at all, sent five supermodels to lip-sync, and blew up the Faith leather jacket, jukebox and guitar. It peaked at No. 8 in the US. Exit interview: legendary.

  6. A neatly folded stack of sweaters on a retail store table, with a rocket ship taking off through the shop window.

    05. Spaceship

    Kanye West · 2004

    Kanye, GLC and Consequence trade verses about dead-end day jobs over a Marvin Gaye sample, with Kanye detailing his real stint folding clothes at the Gap. The College Dropout was named for quitting school. This one handled the job.

  7. A grocery store checkout counter with a paper bag and a house key on a ring sitting on the conveyor belt.

    04. Moving Out (Anthony's Song)

    Billy Joel · 1977

    The Stranger's opener, about a grocery clerk saving up for a house and the neighbors who'd rather grind themselves into an early grave than quit. Joel's advice is to walk away from the treadmill. He then toured for the next five decades.

  8. A disco ball hanging over an empty office cubicle, its light scattered across a desk and an abandoned swivel chair.

    03. Break My Soul

    Beyoncé · 2022

    Built on Robin S.'s Show Me Love and Big Freedia's Explode, it opens with the narrator walking out of a job that's wearing her down. It hit No. 1, her eighth solo chart-topper, and got crowned the Great Resignation anthem. Managers everywhere briefly feared house music.

  9. A rural farmhouse and barn at dusk with a pitchfork stuck in the ground and an electric guitar leaning against the fence.

    02. Maggie's Farm

    Bob Dylan · 1965

    A flat refusal to keep working for an entire family of bad bosses, from Bringing It All Back Home. Dylan opened his electric set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival with it and got booed. Quitting folk music turned out to be the bigger resignation.

  10. A punch clock on a factory wall with a single time card torn in half on the floor below it.

    01. Take This Job and Shove It

    Johnny Paycheck · 1977

    Written by David Allan Coe, sung by a man named Paycheck, and his only No. 1 country hit, holding the top spot for two weeks. It inspired a 1981 movie and a cover by the Dead Kennedys. HR has never recovered from the title alone.

Honorable mentions

  • An unmade bed with a phone face-down on the nightstand and the curtains still drawn at noon.

    The Lazy Song

    Bruno Mars · 2011

    Not quitting, exactly, just a full day of refusing to do anything, phone off, staying in bed. It went top five in the US and the video is Bruno and a dance crew in monkey masks. Calling in sick is the gateway resignation.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A typewriter on an office desk beside a coil of rope and a coffee mug, papers scattered.

    9 to 5

    Dolly Parton · 1980

    Dolly wrote it on set by clacking her acrylic nails like a typewriter, and it hit No. 1 and got an Oscar nod. But in the movie nobody quits. They kidnap the boss and run the office better. Admirable, felonious and frankly a lot of extra work.

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