Working Woman's Lament

Category: 50 Songs to Hear

SONG: Millworker
ARTIST: James Taylor
SONGWRITER: James Taylor
ALBUM: Flag
YEAR/LABEL: 1979; Columbia

I'm not sure I can put myself in their place. I'm sure there's a millworker somewhere who's closely approximated that song.
(James Taylor)

Songs about occupations are nothing new. Likewise, songs performed from a woman's perspective by a man are not uncommon. In 1979, James Taylor put the two together to create one of his greatest tunes, "Millworker."

The song is far from just a lament of an underpaid, overworked woman. The unnamed protagonist in this song is not only dealing with her work, which is described as "nothing but an awful boring job," but also the plight of a single mother. It is difficult to tell who the woman in Taylor's narrative hates more -- her late husband who "dies from too much whiskey and leaves me these three faces to feed" and apparently his job (he is described as a "no-good millworking man") or the job that wastes her life because she "lets this manufacturer use my body for a tool."

Solace is found in the coffee break and memories of the woman's happier childhood where she lived on a farm with a smiling father and a grandfather who told tales of his days sailing on the Great Lakes. But it's soon back to work: "it's me and my machine for the rest of the morning, for the rest of the afternoon, for the rest of my life."

Songs like "Millworker" show exactly why James Taylor was one of the most respected singer/songwriters of the 1970s.

OTHER JAMES TAYLOR MUSIC TO INVESTIGATE:

"Terra Nova" (from JT) -- an absolutely gorgeous song from one of Taylor's biggest albums. Taylor's then-wife Carly Simon joins in the call-and-response at the conclusion.

"I Will Not Lie for You" (from Flag) -- a man who has taken about all he can after covering up for a philandering friend because she now has her sights set on him.

"Her Town Too" (with J.D. Souther, from Dad Loves His Work) -- a melancholy song about Taylor's divorce from Carly Simon ("she gets the house and the garden, he gets the boys in the band"). J.D. Souther's voice compliments the heartache Taylor poured out in this hit.

"Knockin' 'Round the Zoo" (from James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine) -- this song sounds as though it was recorded in a bar after the participants tried to consume all the product in the bar. A reminder that people -- even a "sensitive singer/songwriter" like Taylor -- shouldn't take things too seriously.

PREVIOUS SONGS:
(Country)
A Little Bitty Heart
Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs
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I Want a Home in Dixie
I Lost Today
Fingerprints
Down to the River to Pray
Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyeballs
A Death in the Family
Dark as a Dungeon
Bottomless Well

(Rock)
Long Way Home
Island
Heart of Rome
Harriet Tubman's Gonna Carry Me Home
Entella Hotel
Desperados Under the Eaves
Crossing Muddy Waters
Cliffs of Dooneen
Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)
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