I’m About To Write Some Bad Lyrics: Part 9 — Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
Track nine on my new album, Homemade Nonsense, is about my frustration with the current imbalance of wealth and the, in my opinion, dystopian and destructive relationship we have with work. I got my first job as a Sophomore or Junior in high school, whenever I turned 16 and could legally work in my home state, and I made $7.21 an hour. That wage has barely gone up, if it has gone up at all, since 2004. During the pandemic, many minimum wage workers were furloughed or fired and relied on unemployment benefits, and many actually made more money by being unemployed than they ever got in a paycheck from their employers. The refrain “nobody wants to work anymore” is deliberately trying to make a bogeyman out of the people who have been hurt the most by corporate greed. I took a lot of the things people have said about the current “labor shortage” which is really a “wage shortage” and had a soulless robot voice say them. Also this song was heavily influenced by James Brown’s album “The Payback” and Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” so it’s very funky.
If the lyrics strike your fancy, I’d love it if you considered pre-ordering my album on Bandcamp or iTunes or pre-save it to your Spotify account! Look for the official release on January 7, 2022!
Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
The American work ethic has disappeared
Because nobody wants to work anymore
Stores remain vacant or closed altogether
Because nobody wants to work anymore
We are short-staffed today
Because nobody wants to work anymore
I will move jobs overseas to lower the value of labor across the globe
Because nobody wants to work anymore
Technology and innovation have increased productivity without any correlation to employee pay, or employee benefits, or employee happiness
So now nobody wants to work anymore
We are giving you the opportunity to work for tips
But nobody wants to work anymore
Nobody wants to work anymore, nobody wants to work
Nobody wants to work anymore, nobody wants to work
Nobody wants to work anymore, nobody wants to work
Nobody wants to work anymore, nobody wants to work
I believe in a free market
I am a smart business person
But my business is failing not because of me
But because nobody wants to work anymore
Fast food jobs are belittled and condescended to and now nobody wants to work them because nobody wants to work anymore
As a small business owner I can’t afford to pay $15 an hour
As a big business executive I can’t afford not to drain every last drop of blood, sweat, and tears from you until you are but a shriveled husk
Because nobody wants to work anymore
The problem is not that nobody wants to work anymore
The problem is that you don’t pay them enough to live
Nobody wants to work anymore but if you don’t pay fair you get what you pay for
Nobody wants to work anymore but if you don’t pay fair you get what you pay for
Does that make sense to you?
Pay people and they’ll want to work for you. It’s not hard.
And if you can’t afford to pay them, maybe you don’t deserve to have a business.
Hailing from New Hampshire and living in New York City, Kevin Froleiks is a failed stand-up comedian turned failing musician. His music tends to jump from genre to genre in ways that are disorienting and hard to market effectively. He is a true DIY artist, recording and producing his music entirely in his bedroom. He is the writer and composer of the forthcoming Vampire’s Kiss: The Musical as well as the co-writer and composer of Great Frontier: A Poorly Researched Musical About Lewis And Clark which premiered at the New York Theatre Fest in the summer of 2017. His newest album, Homemade Nonsense, comes out on January 7th on Bandcamp and all streaming services.
