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The Annotated Lyrics
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Arranged By Album
- Live at the Witch Trials
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- Hex Enduction Hour
- Room to Live
- Perverted by Language
- The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall
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- Extricate
- Shift-Work
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- The Infotainment Scan
- Middle Class Revolt
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- Light User Syndrome
- Levitate
- The Marshall Suite
- The Unutterable
- Are You Are Missing Winner
- The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click)
- Fall Heads Roll
- Reformation Post TLC
- Imperial Wax Solvent
- Your Future Our Clutter
- Ersatz G.B.
- Re-Mit
- The Remainderer
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- 2014
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- Home /
- The Annotated Lyrics /
- Shift-Work
Shift-Work
Lyrics
She's ten to five
But I'm shift work
And my woman alive
Shift work (2)
Shift work
I thought shift work would work
But it's good as broken us apart
Lights flash over me
Twenty-four hour bulb
I'm just home for tea
But she's in work mode
Shift work
Shift work
And they will shake you by the hands
For shift work
But being abandoned by your woman
Is the price for shift work
Shift work
Shift work
Shift work
Shift work, you let me down
Gave me a hard heart
You just cracked my mind
You split us apart
Shift work
Shift work
Shift work
Raise your wages per year one grand
By shift work
But I can see me go, go, going from this land
Because of shift work
Shift work
I don't give her a chance
She gets the the morning rant
Gets in at eleven
Doing overtime
I'm going out at the time
Just to hang out with a woman who was my...
Shift work
She was ten to five
But I'm shift work
And that woman that once was mine
It's just shift work
Shift work
Shift work
Now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now
Shift work
Now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now
Shift work
Now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now
Shift work
Now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now
Shift work
Now, now, now, now
Where are you going?
This work has not yet reached
Cessation.
Notes
1. Shift work has been shown to have many negative health consequences, both physical and psychological, and there have indeed been studies conducted that show it being detrimental to marital and other long-term relationships.
From Select:
"Shift-Work [the album] is personal...
'Yeah, it is very personal,' [MES] admits. 'A bit too personal, actually. The title track's about a bloke who's on shiftwork and he splits up with his wife, like.' He must see the look of inquiry, because he adds, quickly, 'It's not about me or owt. There's other songs on the LP are about me and the wife.'"
2. "Ten to Five" also makes an appearance in the Fall's cover of "Lost in Music" from The Infortainment Scan; oddly, MES changes it from the original version's more usual "nine to five." The significance of this is unclear; ten to five is not a particularly common shift length.
The lyrics borrow from R. Dean Taylor's "Woman Alive," which runs:
"9 to 5, your mind's dead but your body's alive/ 6 to 10, it's the same old bar again" (thanks to Connell, who also points out the fact that MES sings "woman alive" in the same cadence as Taylor).
More Information
Comments (3)

- 1. Connell | 08/07/2014

- 2. dannyno | 13/07/2014

- 3. Ivan | 01/07/2021
By the way, you have to hear the live version where Mark forgets the words,
then, after a 20 seconds or so silence, says 'short memory loss.....from shift work!'
It's at about 3.50 here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTV1zToGj8M
9 to 5
You're mind's dead but your body's alive
6 to 10
It's the same old bar again
MES' phrasing of the words "woman alive" is the same as R. Dean's, too.