Sunshine (Go Away Today) by Jonathan Edwards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zurwvfj6f_0 – silly video, but the original version
Not really. It’s someone who wants all the trappings of success and incorrectly thinks that the musicians who have it don’t work for it.
Exactly. It has nothing to do with the rat race.
Huh. I never thought of “Every Day Is Exactly The Same” as a song about rejecting the rat race. I see it more of a song about being so down nothing matters, the world has beaten you down so far you can’t see your way out. Different way of looking at it, though.
The first song to come to my mind was Synchronicity II by the Police, with lines such as
“Daddy only stares into the distance
There’s only so much more that he can take”
“And every single meeting with his so-called superior
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch”
“Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance
He knows that something somewhere has to break”
and particularly the recurring line about something crawling from the bottom of a dark Scottish lake, which seems to indicate he is about to snap and possibly kill his family.
I agree with you. That’s why I said the songs were more like a surrender 
I’m Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight - Atlanta Rhythm Section:
Life on the street is a jungle
A struggle to keep up the pace
I just can’t beat that old dog eat dog
The rats keep winning the rat race
Sitting on a Fence - Rolling Stones:
All of my friends at school grew up and settled down
And they mortgaged off their lives
One things not said too much, but I think it’s true
They just get married cause there’s nothing else to do
All I Wanna Do - Sheryl Crow
*The good people of the world are washing their cars
On their lunch break, hosing and scrubbing
As best they can in skirts in suits
They drive their shiny Datsuns and Buicks
Back to the phone company, the record store too
Well, they’re nothing like Billy and me*
“I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more…”
-Bob Dylan
“Life in the Fast Lane” may not fit, but The Eagles do have “Earlybird”, which tells how much better is to be a musician and enjoy life as long as you’re not hurting anyone than to be a hard worker whose life is passing them by.
Pink Floyd’s “Breathe” is a bit obscure, but does have at least a criticism of the [rabbit] race (“balanced on the biggest wave/you race toward an early grave”). Some of their other songs fit well in that vein, notably “Welcome to Machine”.
“Piece of Mind” by Boston
Charlie Daniels
Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding.
My dad loved that song so much. I loved it too.
Not leaving forever, but escaping after hours:
End of the day, factory whistle cries
Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes
And you just better believe boy, somebody’s gonna get hurt tonight
It’s the working, the working, just the working life
Factory, Springsteen
Some guys they just give up living
And start dying little by little, piece by piece,
Some guys come home from work and wash up,
And go racing in the street.
Racing in the Street, Springsteen
I’m a man of means by no means, King of the Road.
The folk music/singer songwriter realm has a few of these (big surprise, eh?)
Jackson Browne, From Silver Lake:
“Did you see our brother
He was here the other day
But he only came to say that he can’t breathe here
Did you see his lady
She was reaching for his hand
Just as if to tell her man that she can’t either”
Steve Forbert’s “The American in Me” is an entire album on that basic theme. But in particular, the song “Responsibility”.
Pete Morton’s “Water from the Houses of Our Father”.
John Gorka’s “Land of the Bottom Line” is more of a bittersweet acceptance of the rat race:
“I couldn’t bribe a wino on what I used to make
My Fortune was as sure as the wind
But I was free to wonder and time was on my hands
It was mine to burn and to bend”
9 to 5:
On the same boat
With a lot of your friends
Waitin for the day
Your ship’ll come in
And the tides gonna turn
An’ it’s all gonna roll you away
The Kinks - A Well Respected Man
I think it takes the cake.
I was going to nominate this yesterday, but I read the lyrics and it’s not about that kind of rat race.
It sounds like the song is about Jamaican politics.
Please remember, everybody: don’t quote more than a verse here, and link to an outside Web site if you want to show people all the lyrics to a song.
For me, it’d be The Jam’s Going Underground: