The Bears’ Waiting Room:
Put a lot of pavement on my shoes
Made a lot of payments on my dues
I’m running out of patience just like you
One of the best is Jesse Winchester’s “A Showman’s Life”- and since he was never wildly wealthily famous, it’s easy to take it in earnest:
Also, how have we gone so many posts without anyone mentioning ABBA’s “Super Trooper”???
One Rock & Roll Too Many from “Starlight Express”
When you get right down to it, Norm Greenbaum’s classic Spirit In The Sky is nothing more than a fundamentalist Christian gloat song.
I also used to wonder if his name indicated he was a converted Jew. Nope. According to Wikipedia, he dropped in “Jesus” because he figured it’d have more popular appeal that way. I’m guessing also because it fits the meter better.
Not to be confused with “The Road,” the title track from one of their live albums, which would also fit this category.
And, speaking of the Kinks, much of their “Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround” album is about “the joys, sorrows, trials and tribulations” of the music biz.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has Partners, Brothers and Friends about life on the road and their lives behind it. The whole tone of the song is that they’re just going about the business of being the band. It’s pretty much, “Here we are and this is the way it is, and that’s what it takes.”
Is it folk or rock or country?
Seems like everybody cares but us.
So just leave us an early wake up call
so we don’t miss the bus.
Actually, it’s satire of smug “once baptized, always saved” Christians, who I find funny and logically inconsistent, which is one of the reasons I love the song so much.
That and the fucking AWESOME riff.
Van Halen - Runnin’ With The Devil
I like this song a lot, but I was always bothered by him singing about the roadies working for minimum wage since I would think it was in his power to have them paid more. Add to that the idea that he doesn’t recognize that they are actually paid well and I find myself scratching my head.
I rather like “Baby Girl” by Sugarland
Since this zombie has been resurrected…
Old 97’s - “Longer Than You’ve Been Alive”
“We’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive
Twenty good years of about twenty-five”
I like The Band’s “Stage Fright” (which was just on the radio here) and Chilliwack’s “Fly At Night” and I think Rush’s “Limelight” is a bit pretentious.
Nashville Radio–Jon Langford
Freddie Mercury and the boys paid theirs.
Rock and Roll I Gave You All the Best Years of my Life by Kevin Johnson. The story of trying to make it in the music business and finally realising it is never going to happen.
A sub genre of this is the young up and coming musician needing to write the song about how they have to do it their way and make their own mistakes. Joss Stone and Jonny Lang I am looking at you.