Labor Day Songs for Your Party or Barbecue

The calendar says summer begins on June 21 and ends on Sept. 21 each year. However, in the frenetic pace that we all keep these days, summer is considered by most to run between Memorial Day at the end of May and Labor Day at the start of September.

With all the shrill rhetoric on the healhcare debate, with monied interests who are making a killing on the current "system", such as it is, with shrill rhetoric such as "the gubmint is a' gonna kill Granny", Labor Day is an opportunity to take cover from all the BS.

Here are 10 Labor Day songs that either celebrate the class of people who are the backbone of America, the working class , or deliver a good, swift kick to the derriere of the fatcats striving to "keep them in their place".

It's Money That Matters/Randy Newman
This song is not to be taken literally. It is a sardonic look at the fuel that runs the engine of our society, government and everything else. The reason so much green is being poured into the campaign to keep healthcare as dysfunctional as it is: those people are making big money off of this mess and they want to keep it that way, regardless of how many millions don't have healthcare or how many children are affected.

It's money that matters, hear what I say, It's money that matters in the U.S.A., it's money that matters, whatever you do, it's money that matters, for me and you..

16 Tons/Tennessee Ernie Ford.
You load 16 tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt, well St. Peter doncha call me, 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store...

This is a not a Labor Day song as much as it is an anthem.

The more corporate America gets from us, the more they want. In this economy with so many seeking jobs out there, the more ruthless big companies become. Most of us only get Labor Day off as lip service to the labor movement. Ok, a day off is a day off, so it's better to be paid lip service than not.

Take This Job And Shove It/Johnny Paycheck
Does this one need any explanation? It may have been a fantasy, but isn't it one to which we can all relate? An ideal Labor Day song.

Low Budget/The Kinks
Excuse my shoes, they don't quite fit, they were a special offer and they hurt me a bit, even my trousers are giving me pain, they were reduced in a sale so I shouldn't complain, they squeeze me so tight 'til i can't take no more, they're a size 28, but I take 34...

Gotta love those Kinks with their sense of humor and things are tough all over, ya' know? With the economy improving slowly as we get ready for Labor Day, we can only hope for better days ahead.

All The Small Things/Blink 182
Only one line in the song is really pertinent to this. Late night, come home, work sucks, I know.
It's not the work itself most of us object to, I'll work long hours to accomplish something tangible, as I've done many times. It's all the workplace politics, indecisive, incompetent management and fecal material we have to deal with...

Workin' At The Carwash Blues/Jim Croce
Well all I can do is shake my head, you might not believe that it's true, for workin' at this end of Niagara Falls is an undiscovered Howard Hughes, so baby don't expect to see me with no double martini in any high brow society news, 'cause I got them steadily depressin' lowdown mind messin' workin' at the carwash blues... Need I say more?

Badlands/Bruce Springsteen
Workin' in the fields that'll get your back burned, workin' 'neath the wheels, 'til you get your facts learned, baby I got my facts learned real good right now. It would be hard to do a list of Labor Day songs of this kind with The Boss..

The Way It Is/Bruce Hornsby
Standin' in line markin' time, waiting for the welfare dime, 'cause they can't buy a job, a man in a silk suit hurries by, catches the poor old lady's eye, just for fun he says, "get a job", that's just the way it is....

One of the things lost in all the Jerry Springer-like healthcare hoopla is that millions of people have no healthcare because their jobs were outsourced to foreign countries for slave labor, and along with their job, they also lost their health insurance.

The COBRA plan is better than nothing, but a person out of a job probably can't afford to pay the premiums. "Let them eat cake" is the GOP mantra coming from radio and TV blowhards like Rush Liarbaugh (in between hits of oxycontin) and crackpot Glenn Beck and others who have to resort to lies about Grandma to try to scuttle any sort of healthcare reform.

Wake Me Up When September Ends/Green Day
As Congress is still debating healthcare issues with all of the furor likely to last at least through the end of the month, scared people toting guns to Presidential appearances and some brainwashed souls making fools of themselves with heated rhetoric when they have no idea what is really being decided, we all might relate to this ballad as a Labor Day song.

Summer has come and passed, the innocent can never last, wake me up when September ends.

On a lighter note, you have the Kenny Loggins song Wait A Little While.
Here's a sweet September morning, there's a sense of autumn on the rise, he steps into the wind and sadly sighs, why does there always seem to be a cold December wind in front of me?

Wait a little while to welcome what you're after, give it the time to find it's way to you, as soon as you no longer try, you'll turn and find it standing by your side, come and get it, if you let it, it will come to you.

I know from personal experience that instead of trying to force things to happen, it's often better to bide your time, doing things the right way and let things happen. I was in my 40s when I married for the first time and a little older still before becoming a father.

That's not the way most do things, I know, but I like taking the road less traveled, it's how I roll...

Thanks for reading this list of Labor day songs and have a safe Holiday, it will be awhile before there's another...