I need a job. Fortunately, we have a system in place for people like me, one explicable in four simple steps: first, the person desirous of employment prepares a sheet of paper listing the mostly invented qualifications and accomplishments of interest to a prospective employer (Contributing Editor!); second, he fills out a form prepared specifically by the employer; third, both documents are turned over to the employer, who reads each application carefully, comparing the varied qualifications of the applicants and even, if necessary, deepening his knowledge of their character through brief interviews, making possible an efficient, intelligent, and harmonious choice; fourth, he gives the job to his brother’s girlfriend.

Maybe this isn’t what happens in every case. But that’s how it can look from the outside, particularly if you want to write and have a problem with overambition; thus it’s important, on your way home from a disheartening interview, to listen to the right music. Three songs, then, to soothe the souls of the unemployed:

Talking Heads - Found a Job
Interviewed after the release of True Stories, a criminally overlooked elegy of a film about metal buildings and fast food, David Byrne said that it was “more fun to like things and still be gently critical,” and though “Found a Job” is an early song from the same album as the decidedly ungentle “The Big Country,” Byrne’s half-fondness for junk culture is still apparent. Bob and Judy, Byrne’s unhappily married couple who rekindle their love by producing their own television show (”There might even be a spin-off, but they’re not sure about that”), find salvation in the most powerful symbol of the mass-market America Talking Heads’ contemporaries held in conspicuous contempt, but the screwball creativity Byrne gives them—with Bob dashing around the city on a location scout while Judy remains home furiously scribbling down ideas—makes them nothing but loveable. Besides, they’re trying to make TV better—it doesn’t have to be like this, guys! And the ‘Heads of 1978, bouncy, staccato, and strange, can go toe-to-toe with the monomorphous collective that sprawls across Remain in Light and almost win—and they wipe the floor with the polished backup band of the late 1980s.

Ella Fitzgerald - Nice Work If You Can Get It
Self-conscious about my habit of invariably turning to Ella Fitzgerald when writing about anything composed before 1960, I did some research before I wrote this. But the Billie Holiday version’s a little rushed, the Frank Sinatra version is the worst Sinatra performance I’ve ever heard, and the Cassandra Complex version is a goth-industrial-dance interpretation—which is better than Sinatra but not quite what we’re looking for. So it’s back to Ella—because she times it right, because she breathes it right, because she makes even a winceable Ira Gershwin line like “The only work that really brings enjoyment is the kind that is for girl and boy meant” sound like one of Cole Porter’s greatest bon mots, and because she knows what the song’s about. Other versions erroneously treat “you can get it if you try” as the song’s center, but Fitzgerald alone does the rueful loneliness of the Gershwins’ narrator right—the first time she sings “Loving one who loves you and then taking that vow / Nice work if you can get it, and if you get it, won’t you tell me how?” the song’s clever little joke unfurls into a sad miniature other interpreters bury under jauntiness. Not as goofily inspirational a ditty as the Heads’ entry, and, of course, not actually about working at all, but a masterpiece.

The Wrens - This Boy Is Exhausted
Scrabbling for a job, one can become preoccupied with the despair of the moment—with the concern, inescapable, that one’s lack of qualifying attributes will doom one to a life of ignoble, unromantic poverty. One’s parents’ house is often involved in these daydreams. In such straits it is important to keep perspective, to look down the road—one must always remember that no matter how miserable things seem now, an opportunity will come along to make the future far more miserable. Thus the Wrens’ “This Boy Is Exhausted,” a “Sixteen Tons” for post-millenials, a song that drips trapped weariness from every crevice. “Because I’m caught / I can’t type / I can’t temp / I’m way past college / No ways out / No back doors / Not anymore”—even Bob and Judy’s brand of creative salvation is only half-reassuring here, as Charles Bissell emphasizes the rarity of the band’s music-induced escape from drudgery and remarks bitterly that “a V.P.’s faith is one single long.” But the music is so glorious, chiming guitars, shuffling drums, croaking voice and all, that the hope that’s hard to find in the lyrics materializes anyway. The ‘Heads wrote a song about television that’s active and playful; the Gershwins wrote a song about love that’s lonely and resigned; the Wrens wrote a song about failure that’s nothing less than an anthem—and look, they finally sold a record with it. Looks like there’s still a market for good stuff. Now if only I were a source of it.

[buy stuff here / here / here]