Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)
Written by Tommy Shaw
Lead Vocals by Tommy Shaw
Give me a job, give me security
Give me a chance to survive
I'm just a poor soul in the unemployment line
My God, I'm hardly alive
My mother and father, my wife and my friends
I see them laugh in my face
But I've got the power, and I've got the will
I'm not a charity case
I'll take those long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my eye to the keyhole
If it takes all that to be just what I am
I'm gonna be a blue collar man
Make me an offer that I can't refuse
Make me respectable, man
This is my last time in the unemployment line
So like it or not I'll take those
Long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my back to the wall
If it takes all that to be just what I am
I'm gonna be a blue collar man
Keeping my mind on a better life
When happiness is only a heartbeat away
Paradise, can it be all I heard it was
I close my eyes and maybe I'm already there
Interpretation
Here's what Dennis said during a January 14, 1991 interview with In The Studio:
...Not to miss the lyrical content of "Blue Collar Man" which is really terrific, about being unemployed at a time when unemployment was really becoming a critical issue in this country. Tommy was living at the time in Niles, Michigan, which was feeling the pinch - that whole quarter there from South Chicago up into Gary and Hammond where there was a lot of layoffs in the steel industry, a lot of layoffs in the auto industry, because he even had friends who were involved in the auto industry in Michigan...and so "Blue Collar Man" was not only a great rock tune, but it actually was saying something pretty interesting about needing a job to have an identity, which is what that song is, I think, truly about, insomuch as so many of us see our jobs as a definition as to who we are. When you take that away from us, it's more difficult for us to define who we are.
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