(SOUNDBITE OF DOLLY PARTON SONG, "9 TO 5")
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
It was over 45 years ago when Dolly Parton clicked her nails and realized that sounds kind of like a typewriter. That's how one of her most famous songs came to life.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
DOLLY PARTON: (Singing) Workin' 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin'. Barely gettin' by. It's all takin' and no givin'.
FLORIDO: "9 to 5" was written for the movie of the same name. It became an anthem for working women. Dolly Parton died today at the age of 80. We're remembering her remarkable life all throughout today's program. But here, we'd like to feature some reporting about one song, a catchy pop hit with some powerful things to say about working life. From our archives, here's NPR's Lynn Neary.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
DOLLY PARTON: (Singing) Tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen.
LYNN NEARY, BYLINE: Longtime labor leader and organizer Karen Nussbaum started her career back in the early 1970s as an office worker.
KAREN NUSSBAUM: It was a kind of job where you were just not seen. You were just part of the wallpaper. I remember sitting at my desk at lunch one day and a student came in - I worked at a university - looked me dead in the eye and said, isn't anybody here? And it was those kinds of things that just got under your skin a lot.
NEARY: Nussbaum and some of her friends got together to talk about their frustrations. That led to a new organization. It was called 9to5. Nussbaum knew Jane Fonda through the anti-war movement and told her about it. That inspired Fonda to make a movie starring herself, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton as three fed up working women. Dabney Coleman played their insufferable boss.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "9 TO 5")
DABNEY COLEMAN: (As Franklin Hart Jr) Judy, you've got to help me. That mob is going crazy out there. They're trying to kill me.
JANE FONDA: (As Judy) Why would they want to do a nasty thing like that?
COLEMAN: (As Franklin Hart Jr) I don't know. I'm not such a bad guy.
FONDA: (As Judy) You're a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.
NEARY: The movie was the ultimate revenge fantasy for women who felt overworked, underpaid and disrespected. Dolly Parton wrote the song while working on the film. "9 to 5" was No. 2 at the box office in 1980, beaten only by "The Empire Strikes Back." The song was No. 1 on three different billboard charts. Nussbaum says it's a perfect anthem for working women.
NUSSBAUM: It starts with pride - pour yourself a cup of ambition.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
DOLLY PARTON: (Singing) Tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen. Pour myself a cup of ambition and yawn and stretch and try to come to life.
NEARY: And then it goes to grievances - barely getting by. They always take the credit.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
DOLLY PARTON: (Singing) They just use your mind, and they never give you credit. It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it.
NEARY: It then goes to class conflict - you're just a step on the boss man's ladder. And then it ends with collective power - you're in the same boat with a lot of your friends.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
DOLLY PARTON: (Singing) In the same boat with a lot of your friends, waitin' for the day your ship'll come in, and the tide's gonna turn, and it's all gonna roll your way.
NEARY: So in the space of this wildly popular song with a great beat, Dolly Parton just puts it all together all by herself.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
DOLLY PARTON: (Singing) Nine to five, for service and devotion. You would think that I would deserve a fair promotion.
NEARY: More than 20 years after "9 to 5" first came out, Rebecca Traister was starting her career. Traister's a New York Magazine writer who comments frequently on feminism and politics. Her most recent book, "Good And Mad," is about the power of women's anger. But back then, she had a job as an assistant, which she says was just another name for a secretary.
REBECCA TRAISTER: It was a lot of getting coffee and making appointments and xeroxing.
NEARY: Traister and her friends found their jobs frustrating and stressful. They had ambitions for the future but feared getting stuck. Sometimes they were just plain angry. They liked to get together for a drink at a local bar where "9 to 5" was on the jukebox.
TRAISTER: We'd be sitting around tables, drinking beer and talking, and everybody would pound their fists on the table or pound their nails. You know, there's the sound of the typing in the back of that song, the click, click, click, click, click, click. And, you know, we'd sing it. And it was - at that point, it was a 20, 25-year-old song.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DOLLY PARTON: Anybody out there working a 9-to-5 job?
(CHEERING)
DOLLY PARTON: You can help us out on this.
NEARY: Fast-forward another 20-something years to the 2019 Grammys, and Dolly Parton brought down the house with a chorus of famous young singers, including Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus, belting out her famous song.
(SOUNDBITE OF "61ST ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS)
DOLLY PARTON ET AL: (Singing) Want to move ahead, but the boss won't seem to let me. I swear sometimes that man is out to get me.
NEARY: There's a reason "9 to 5" has such staying power, says Rebecca Traister.
TRAISTER: It's a song that contains complaints about so many frustrations and inequities and injustices within a workplace - some of them gendered, some of them capitalist, some of them about how power is so unequally distributed. It is a song that is simultaneously a song of angry complaint and immense good cheer. And there's something about that combination that makes it kind of addictive and fun.
(SOUNDBITE OF TUNE-YARDS SONG, "9 TO 5")
NEARY: A different take on the song emerged when the public radio program, This American Life, commissioned a new cover.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
TUNE-YARDS: (Singing) Tumble out of bed, and I stumble to the kitchen. Pour myself a cup of ambition.
NEARY: Merrill Garbis, lead singer of Tune-Yards, says she wanted to bring a new sensibility to the song.
MERRILL GARBIS: It is a great song because people can relate to feeling powerless.
NEARY: Though she is now a successful singer, Garbis has worked a lot of jobs over the years.
GARBIS: I shredded files. I restocked shelves at a grocery store. I was a secretary, a house cleaner.
NEARY: Garbis says Parton's lyrics capture so much about the reality of workers' daily lives and their dreams.
GARBIS: How much dreaming it takes to get through some of those days, some of those miserable days, cleaning up other people's messes and generally being treated like trash, how much dreaming is needed in those times to get up the next morning and do it all again.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
TUNE-YARDS: (Singing) They let you dream just to watch 'em shatter. You're just a step on the boss man's ladder. But you've got dreams he'll never take away.
NEARY: Garbis' version of the song ends abruptly on a far more pointed note than the original.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
TUNE-YARDS: (Singing) It's a rich man's game, no matter what they call it.
I felt like I didn't want to be cutesy with it. I wanted to land with a period, exclamation point, question mark.
NEARY: Whether ending it with a question mark, belting it out in a bar, organizing labor or running for president, "9 to 5" is a song that pretty much anyone who's ever had to work for a living can relate to, but especially women. Lynn Neary NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
DOLLY PARTON: (Singing) It's a rich man's game, no matter what they call it. And you spend your life puttin' money in his wallet. Nine to five, what a way to make a livin'. Barely gettin' by. It's all takin' and no givin'. They just use your mind, and they never give you credit. It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it. Nine to five, for service and devotion. You would think that I would deserve a fair promotion. Want to move ahead, but the boss won't seem to let me. I swear sometimes that man is out to get me. (Vocalizing).
(Singing) They let you dream just to watch 'em shatter. You're just a step on the boss man's ladder, but you've got dreams he'll never take away. On the same boat with a lot of your friends, waiting for the day your ship'll come in, and the tide's gonna turn, and it's all gonna roll your way. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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