Here's a song that will speak to a specific group of people who might not seem that numerous at first glance but who, in reality, represent a large part of our society: those who feel uncomfortable in their jobs and dream of quitting!

This happened to me in 2019, right before the pandemic. I had been in an administrative job for seven years, a role that lacked any real purpose. Every task felt utterly meaningless, and my whole life was beginning to lose its sense of direction. So, I had to make a drastic choice: leave a "guaranteed-for-life" job for a less stable, but ultimately better, life. I made that decision thanks to a song in French that I heard for the first time then. It was like a switch had flipped. Five years later, I have no regrets whatsoever.

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More info and the full article can be read in our magazine on Patreon.

The song has been added to "Niko's Music Mixtape", our monthly virtual CD on Spotify.

Taylor Lang's take on "Fun Shirt Friday"

On a Friday in November of last year, I was walking through a downtown food court over a lunch break. I passed a man in an expensive suit, probably in his mid-50s, positively SCREAMING at someone through a cell phone about a project. That in itself was jarring, but then as I slid beside him I could just see inside his suit jacket. He was wearing a dress shirt with colourful balloons on it. I couldn't help but think - was this guy young and idealistic once?

Did he love to create, to paint, to draw, to make rather than destroy? And is this "Fun Shirt Friday" his only outlet now -- the weight of the corporate world holding him down and turning him into something he never wanted to be? So I wrote this song within the next few weeks after that, I guess to be a voice for all those people stuck in those situations. As a way for them to yell those frustrations and to remind the world that there is more to "success" than drab coats and made-up urgency. It's okay to feel strongly, even if it's anger; just make sure that it's aimed at system causing it, and not some poor soul on the other end of the phone, stuck in the exact same endless loop that you are.

A bit more about Taylor Lang

A lifelong multi-instrumentalist, Taylor Lang delivers stories and music in a genre-bending fusion of folk and fingerstyle techniques. Influenced by artists as sonically diverse as Dan Mangan and Halsey, Donovan Woods and Jon Gomm, or The Tragically Hip and Ed Sheeran, he sharpened his skills over more than a decade in bands: first with award-winning grunge rockers Crack the Lens, and then as the frontman of Blaeser, a YYCMA-nominated indie trio based in Calgary.

Emerging as a full solo performer, his latest project is a studio collaboration with JUNO-winning producer and guitarist Russell Broom, best known for his long involvement with Jann Arden, Kyle McKearney, and other chart-topping Canadian artists. His first solo song was "Broke But Never Broken", a slow-burning folk rock ballad that calls back to Lang’s childhood experiences in rural Saskatchewan. But his latest release, "Fun Shirt Friday", is much more upbeat and pointed - an incisive indictment of burnout and corporate frustration, urging the audience to wonder if the portraits of success we see are actually what they claim to be.

Ever evolving and always authentic to his message, with powerful vocals and subtle guitarwork alike, Lang’s fundamental musicianship and carefully crafted lyrics combine into something utterly unique, both in the studio and on the stage.

Reach out to Taylor Lang

More songs from Taylor Lang on Spotify

Lyrics

You finally got the office, the title on the desk

But it's okay, on Fridays you can change the way you dress

Because HR approved the solace and the C-suite is impressed

As long as you keep the jacket on, cause uniform is best

These budget cuts keep adding up and if you wanna stay

Then you must do the work of two for a fraction of the pay

This necktie's like a noose, never looser in the collar

At least this nervous breakdown comes in all your favorite colors

At the end of every week you find comfort in the pattern

Something fun you hide inside the more important matters

Fluorescent lights buzzing like buzzards overhead

I know it's Fun Shirt Friday but don't you pull that thread

Don't you pull that thread

30 years, a long career of forgetting what you knew

The hustle was a hobby that you once loved to do

And now you just pretend to be excited by the boring

Presenting all your happiness projections every morning

At the end of every week you find comfort in the pattern

Something fun you hide inside the more important matters

Fluorescent lights buzzing like buzzards overhead

I know it's Fun Shirt Friday but don't you pull that thread

Don't you pull that thread

At the end of every week you find comfort in the pattern

A crumpled piece of fabric that can't climb the corporate ladder

And every time it feels like you might just get ahead

You find it torn and frayed, but you're afraid to pull that thread

Don't you pull that thread

Don't you pull that thread

Don't you pull that thread

(Nine to five is 25 to life, scraping by and empty inside)

(Nine to five is 25 to life, scraping by and empty inside)