Bring Back the Eight Hour Day

My job makes me crazy, I'm always behind Even though I am not one to shirk And some fuzzy folksinger repeats in my mind That my life should be more than my work Well, I like the work that I do I don't mind earning my pay But there's so much to do when the work day is through Bring back the eight-hour day Say you work at a white-collar job You get paid at a fixed monthly rate But you come in for meetings a half-hour early You're working a full hour late Then you sit for an hour in traffic With the rest of the overtime drones There's a latchkey kid you must chase off to bed 'Fore you eat a cold supper alone Oh, bring back the eight-hour day When did we give it away? There's so much to do when the work day is through Bring back the eight-hour day When I was a kid, mom stayed home And we lived on dad's blue-collar pay Our standard of living was decent and sweet Just as good as what I've got today Now my wife has a good-paying job And me, well, I'm doing okay But we're putting out 99 hours a week Tell me who the hell's getting my pay? Hey Bring back the eight-hour day When did we give it away? There's so much to do when the work day is through Bring back the eight-hour day They got cellular phones for your car They got notebook PC's for your lap If you crawl off to sleep, you stay close to your beeper Now, why do we stand for this crap? They tell you, "You've got to compete" No! We're tired from footing the bill Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest And eight hours for what we will A hundred and ten years ago In Chicago in Haymarket Square They gathered from shipyards, from mine and from mill Just to march in the sun and the air They'd been slaving from dawn until dusk But not on the first of May 'Cause you can't smell the flowers when you're working 12 hours So they struck for an eight-hour day, hey Bring back that eight-hour day Bring back the five-day week When did we give it away? How did it become an antique? I like the work that I do I don't mind earning my pay But there's so much to do when the work day is through Bring back the eight-hour day