Music to leave work to

Subject: Music to leave work to
From: DMcG
Date: 09 May 03 - 12:55 PM

I'll be leaving my current job in a couple of months after more than a decade. I'm tempted to replace the final speech by a song, just to startle everyone. At the moment, I'm inclined to a couple of verses from "The Parting Glass" but what other suggestions have people got? (This is an amicable separation - that that into account, please!)

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Schantieman
Date: 09 May 03 - 01:02 PM

"I did it their way" sung by Roy Bailey.   I don't think he wrote it himself, but I don't know who did.

Steve

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Cluin
Date: 09 May 03 - 01:11 PM

Johnny Paycheck's "Take This Job and Shove It"?

Or Peter Rowan's "Mr. Time Clock"?

Or was it a good job?

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 09 May 03 - 01:22 PM

Derek and Clive's "Darling Flo" will startle them for sure.

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 May 03 - 01:22 PM

"Thanks for the Memories ?"
"I'll be seeing you"

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: GUEST
Date: 09 May 03 - 01:41 PM

The Xerox Line by Stan Rogers

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Schantieman
Date: 09 May 03 - 01:42 PM

Found it. Hiding in the DT all along!   May not be appropriate, but it's a good song.

Their Way

It's by someone called Bob Blue.   Who he?

Steve

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: PoppaGator
Date: 09 May 03 - 01:49 PM

Dave Van Ronk's "Last Call." Not work-related, but a great farewell.

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: NicoleC
Date: 09 May 03 - 01:54 PM

"Every Night's Saturday Night (When You Ain't Got a Job)" by the Uninvited?

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: GUEST,ClaireBear
Date: 09 May 03 - 02:16 PM

From the chantey tradition, you can choose from either outward bound songs:

"Bound Away" (I'm bound away, me lassie, far far away me lassie/I'm bound away me lassie, I'm bound away...)


Or homeward bound:

"Leave Her, Johnny"? (Oh the rats have left and we, the crew/It's time that we were leaving too...")

Who knows? You might get everyone singing along on the chantey lines and start a mass defection!

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Padre
Date: 09 May 03 - 03:04 PM

The Farewell Chantey: "It is time to go now...."

Padre

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From:
Date: 09 May 03 - 08:02 PM

I sang 'Generations of Change' by Matt Armour when I left work for the last time.

Jack

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Little Robyn
Date: 09 May 03 - 09:31 PM

When my husband was made redundant a few years back, he intended singing Colin Dryden's Factory Lad - Turning steel how do you feel...
last verse:
So when my time comes as come it must,
I'll leave this place,
I'll walk right out past the charge-hand's desk
And I'll never turn me face,
Out through the gate, into the sun
And I'll leave it all behind
With one regret for the lads I've left
To carry on the grind.

But when the crunch came, he was unable to sing anything - too much emotion, saying goodbye to his workmates!
Just thinking of the words was bad enough.

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From:
Date: 09 May 03 - 09:55 PM

There's a song called the Bosses' LAment. It's in the DT

Boss' Lament

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: JennyO
Date: 09 May 03 - 11:55 PM

I can't think of one particular song offhand, but I'm sure the Shiny Bum Singers would have one for the occasion, as they are a Canberra group of workers and ex-workers from the Public Service who do hilarious parodies on every aspect of office life. I might ask Sandra. She might have some of their song books. She has them every year at her folk club.

BTW "Shiny Bums" is what you get on the seat of your suit pants from spending hours sitting at your desk.

Is that the kind of job you are leaving DMcG?

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: GUEST
Date: 10 May 03 - 02:07 AM

Go out with class, but let your audience try to figure out what you're up to.

Play the Village Stompers (1964?) doing "Midnight in Moscow."

- Merritt


"It's all one big note." - F. Zappa

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: McMusic
Date: 10 May 03 - 02:11 AM

Handel's "Messiah"?

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: DMcG
Date: 10 May 03 - 02:32 AM

Not the whole of the Messiah, surely!

There are some interesting snippets you could could pick, apart from the Halleluia chorus. "He was despised and rejected of men" has possibilities, as has "All we like sheep have gone astray".

By and large, it has been a good job. The biggest problem is that for the last eighteen months or so I have had very little to do. It is a public sector job, so songs mentioned by JennyO might be very appropriate.

Keep the ideas coming!

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: GUEST,Billy
Date: 10 May 03 - 02:40 AM

The coolest exit I was involved in had a piper escort him from the building. The guy called me up to find a bagpiper - the only good one I found available on a Friday afternoon was female and (dressed in full highland attire) she started from his workplace (he didn't have to make a speech) and piped him out to the car park.
She later told me it was pretty intense, all the women were weeping (so were some of the men) and the bosses were very annoyed at the spectacle.

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: JennyO
Date: 10 May 03 - 04:17 AM

Okay, DMcG, in that case I will look harder and see what I can come up with. I have a couple of the Shiny Bums songbooks, and so far I can see two songs that might work. one is called "Batemans Bay", to the tune of Botany Bay. Batemans Bay is a holiday resort sort of place, but you might be able to substitute a place name more known to your area. The other song is called "The Old IBM" to the tune of Grey Funnel Line. I just don't have time to post the lyrics now as I am about to go out to a house-leaving party. In fact it will probably be Monday or Tuesday before I can post again - Mothers Day and all that stuff. I'll also ask Sandra in Sydney what she can find.

Jenny

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Hrothgar
Date: 10 May 03 - 04:29 AM

Gold Watch Blues

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 May 03 - 09:29 AM

Hello, DMcG & JennyO

My good friend Canberra Chris is Father of Shiny Bums, one of the founders of this wonderful choir. He is the bloke on the left of the pic that heads their website. As you see the Bums are the best dressed folk at any Festival. They all wear their normal work gear, tho the men add South Park ties.

http://www.borisbooks.com.au/sbs.htm

Perhaps you could PM him for a suitable song if the songs given are not suitable. I also work for the Public Service & have posted the Office Fridge song on our Departmental DB after yet another clean up of the fridge (the stuff dripping out of the plastic bag was allegedly rockmelon juice & the once firm skin was a shapeless mess).

enjoy your retirement

sandra

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Peter T.
Date: 10 May 03 - 02:18 PM

Theme from Exodus. (obvious joke, but these threads are of course for the ages). yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 03 - 02:43 PM

"Too Old to Work, and Too Young to Die" is an old labor song which might be poignant. Then there's th emuch simpler "Goodbye, Farewell!" from the Sound of Music.

I like Parting Glass. I presured Mick into sending it in for the Mudcat CDs, so if you don't feel up to singing it yourself, just spin the disk!

There's also a great goodbye song by Rick Fielding at the end of the last CD.

A

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 11 May 03 - 03:08 AM

Try Bruce "U. Utah" Phillip's "Hymn Song".

"I believe if I lived my life again,
I would still be here with you."

Stephen Lee

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: vectis
Date: 11 May 03 - 05:33 PM

There is one about crossing the yard for the last time but I can't remember any complete phrases of it so that I could look it up. It might be appropriate depending on the context of why the singer is leaving work. Maybe a catter knows the song.

Congratulations DMcG. I retired 10 days ago (but who's counting) and I am already wondering how on Earth I managed to find the time to go to work.
Mary

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: GUEST
Date: 12 May 03 - 06:00 AM

I thank everyone for their comments, but I'm not planning to retire yet! I'm a hair's-breadth under 50, so there's potentially a few years to go. I've taken early retirement as far as the company is concerned, but hope to find another job in the not too distant future if I can get past the ageism of potential employers. (It is an excellent package, by the way, so I don't actually need to, but, sad to say, I enjoy work too much to stop yet. And its a great liberation to know that I could afford to stop the next job anytime I wanted.)

Keep the ideas coming....

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: DMcG
Date: 12 May 03 - 06:03 AM

Sorry that was from me. That's the first time I've ever lost my cookie here. Does that make me officially an old-hand, rather than a newbie?

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: GUEST,T-boy
Date: 12 May 03 - 07:35 AM

I think Vectis is thinking of 'Prospect, Providence' (Keith Marsden).

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 12 May 03 - 08:30 AM

I like Amos's (how DO you make the possessive of a name ending in a single s?) Goodbye, Farewell.

I like Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

Then there is Love Changes Everything with the line, "Off into the world we go..."

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: Ed.
Date: 19 Jan 04 - 02:27 PM

Dave (DMcG),

The current Suggestions for a farewell song? reminded me of this.

What (if anything) did you sing on your leaving?

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: freightdawg
Date: 19 Jan 04 - 02:42 PM

Do you have a supervisor that you could tease? Or perhaps one that everyone could recognize as perhaps just a little overbearing? If so, "Oney," as sung by Johnny Cash could be a good choice. You could "personalize" it just a little. If sung bitterly it would obviously have a different connotation, but if you sang it with a twinkle in your eye and a bit of a wink, I think it would be a good farewell ditty. Really depends on the relationship you have with your supervisors and those who might serve under you (could you turn the song on yourself??) Congrats and enjoy your leisure time.

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: Music to leave work to
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Jan 04 - 05:31 PM

I went for 'Parting Glass' in the end. It took people rather by surprise, I must say!

It was quite a good choice, since I've since been back for some paid consultancy work. "Damn yer eyes!" (Sam Hall) might have been unwise .... :-)