Warren wanted a Beach Boys thing for this one, and Carl Wilson and Billy Hinsche came in, with Carl arranging the vocal parts. The other harmony vocalists (credited as the "Gentlemen Boys") were Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, Zevon's longtime backers Waddy Wachtel and Jorge Calderon, and Linda Rondstadt/Stone Poneys guitarist Kenny Edwards.
I got a job making money for the man
Throwing chicken in the bucket with the soda pop can
Puke-green uniform on my back
I had to set it on fire in a vat of chicken fat
I leaped on the counter like a bird with no hair
Running through the mini mall in my underwear
I got lost downtown, couldn't find a ride home
Sun went down, I got frozen to the bone
'Til a hooker let me share her fake fur coat
As I took a little nap, the cops picked up us both
I tried to explain, I was only trying to get warm
I knew I never ever should have burnt my uniform
He said, "Too bad, better bite the bullet hard, son"
I didn't have no teeth so I stole his gun
And I crawled out the window with my shadow on a spoon
Dancing on the roof, shootin' holes in the moon
Get busy
Get busy
You know it
I ain't gonna work for no soul sucking jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't saying jack
I ain't gonna work for no soul sucking jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't saying jack
Standing right here with a beer in my hand
And my mouth is full of sand and I don't understand
Fourteen days I been sleeping in a barn
Better get a paycheck tattooed on my arm
Whistling Dixie with the Dixie cup filled
With the barbecue sauce and the dental floss chill
Big fat fingers pointing into my face
Telling me to get busy cleaning up this place
I got bent like a wet cigarette
And she's coming after me with a butterfly net
Riding on a bloodhound ringing the bell
Black cat wrapped in a road map of hell
Pencil on my leg and I'm trying not to beg
Taking turns baking worms with the bacon and eggs
Now they got me in a birdcage flapping my jaw
Like a pretzel in the stars just waiting to fall
So give me what I got to get so I can go
'Cause I ain't washing dishes in the ditch no more
I ain't gonna work for no soul sucking jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't saying jack
I ain't gonna work for no soul sucking jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't saying jack
No, no, no, no, no
Soul sucking jerk
Soul sucking jerk
You soul sucking jerk
Soul sucking jerk
Ain't gonna work for no soul sucking jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't saying jack
No
Ain't gonna work
For no soul suckin' jerk
I ain't gonna work
For no soul suckin' jerk
I ain't gonna work
Throwing chicken in the bucket with the soda pop can
Puke-green uniform on my back
I had to set it on fire in a vat of chicken fat
I leaped on the counter like a bird with no hair
Running through the mini mall in my underwear
I got lost downtown, couldn't find a ride home
Sun went down, I got frozen to the bone
'Til a hooker let me share her fake fur coat
As I took a little nap, the cops picked up us both
I tried to explain, I was only trying to get warm
I knew I never ever should have burnt my uniform
He said, "Too bad, better bite the bullet hard, son"
I didn't have no teeth so I stole his gun
And I crawled out the window with my shadow on a spoon
Dancing on the roof, shootin' holes in the moon
Get busy
Get busy
You know it
I ain't gonna work for no soul sucking jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't saying jack
I ain't gonna work for no soul sucking jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't saying jack
Standing right here with a beer in my hand
And my mouth is full of sand and I don't understand
Fourteen days I been sleeping in a barn
Better get a paycheck tattooed on my arm
Whistling Dixie with the Dixie cup filled
With the barbecue sauce and the dental floss chill
Big fat fingers pointing into my face
Telling me to get busy cleaning up this place
I got bent like a wet cigarette
And she's coming after me with a butterfly net
Riding on a bloodhound ringing the bell
Black cat wrapped in a road map of hell
Pencil on my leg and I'm trying not to beg
Taking turns baking worms with the bacon and eggs
Now they got me in a birdcage flapping my jaw
Like a pretzel in the stars just waiting to fall
So give me what I got to get so I can go
'Cause I ain't washing dishes in the ditch no more
I ain't gonna work for no soul sucking jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't saying jack
I ain't gonna work for no soul sucking jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't saying jack
No, no, no, no, no
Soul sucking jerk
Soul sucking jerk
You soul sucking jerk
Soul sucking jerk
Ain't gonna work for no soul sucking jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't saying jack
No
Ain't gonna work
For no soul suckin' jerk
I ain't gonna work
For no soul suckin' jerk
I ain't gonna work
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Spirit Within
Bertoldi Brothers
Bertoldi Brothers
Grand Theft Auto
Insane Ian
Insane Ian
The way this song speaks to me🥺🥺when I sing it I feel like I relate
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
If you can get your hands on the Loser EP, there is an amazing version of this song.
This is perhaps one of my favorite beck songs. The entire Mellowgold album rocks too hard to handle.
About the hard life working for the chicken house man! Gotta pay the telephone bills yall.
A la Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm"
This is pretty much my theme song. Tried working the 40 hour week and couldn't do it. Can't work for no soul sucking jerk. So I started my own business.....blowing leaves!!! (Landscaping actually.) I'll keep my 15 hour week and the soul sucking jerks can bother someone else.
beck has had so many strange jobs. like blowing leaves. and he'd bring his leaf blower on stage. hahaha.
ModestM, your name isn't Nick, is it? Yeah, Mellow Gold is the STUFF. Rarely leaves my CD player and this song kicks ass... esp. with the distorted guitar/bass line in the break (ha. I'm an idiot) So freakin awesome, I got my brother into Beck by making him listen to this song alone. Funny and whack. eh.... inaudible
yeah the version on the Loser EP is awesome, different music and the verses are rearranged. Plus it contains one of Beck's great one-liners "Rockin' The Town Like A Moldy Crouton!!" Freakin' hillarious stuff.
@tomauto Flyin through the air with breeze!
^^^^^^^^^^ lmfao... 'rockn the town like a moldy crouton' . That is going on my screensaver marquee. YEAHHHH
This is a Beck classic. All about punching clock for the man just to get by. Seems like alot of beck's early stuff is like that. The whole mellow gold album especially. It just conjures up images of minimum wage jobs, living in run-down apartments, drinking your life away. I like to listen to this stuff when life sucks.
this is a good song I like the version of this on the Loser single better than the album version though