I’m a music addict. I like to think that every micro-phase of my life, year, day has its own soundtrack. Hell, I’m writing this post to the rhythm of the Gipsy Kings. Judging by the abundance of people who have white earbuds permanently grafted to their ears, I’ll assume that I’m not alone. 

So I wondered: Does anybody out there have a a soundtrack for unemployment?

A quick YouTube search yielded some promising results. The Dance of Unemployment shows two grainy cut-outs bumping, grinding, jumping, and spanking to a dance beat. In The Unemployment Blues, a dude makes a lot of hysterical faces while singing in sweats from his couch. Then there’s C.H.A.Z.Z. performing his original R&B song and music video Laid Off. Rhyming about his ex-boss, C.H.A.Z.Z. sings “hold me back, oh i punch eyes and break jaws, i’ll blind him, shoot him in the face with a paint ball, then i’ll hold up the office…” You can probably imagine where it goes from there: he decides to get a government job. 

Still looking for a suitable soundtrack, I turned to 8tracks.com, where people share virtual mix tapes. 8track gets around copyright laws in a similar way to pandora, where all the music is streaming. There were two unemployment soundtracks on 8track, neither of them quite right. So I made my own: The Lighter Side of Unemployment. 

If anybody else takes five minutes to make an unemployment mix, post it in the comments! Even if you don’t have time (who are you kidding?) to construct the full monty: Does your unemployment lifestyle have a soundtrack? Is there a song that rings especially true with your job search, unbound travel, or general listlessness?

Mike Trapanese - June 17, 2009 - 1:00 pm
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