Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues

“Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues” is a 1974 single written and recorded by Jim Croce. It was the third single released from his album I Got a Name. It reached a peak of #32 in July 1974, on the Billboard Hot 100. It is Croce’s last Top 40 hit to date. It was also the fourth single released, including Christmas-themed release “It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way”, after Jim Croce’s death in September 1973. Jim Croce described this song as having a “funky street feel”. During a performance, he explained the song as “a story about a guy who thinks he thinks he should be ruling the universe somewhere, but he is really working at a car wash”. Croce explained he came up with the idea for the song while in the military at Fort Jackson, running telephone cables on poles and thinking he should be doing something else. While on top of the pole, he thought about everyone in the same situation thinking they should be doing another “gig” and have a different job. In the song, a man has just been released from a 90-day prison sentence for “non-support”, and believing himself to be “an undiscovered Howard Hughes” and “a genius”, tries to smooth-talk his way into an executive position. Every company he tries turns him down, stating they have no openings, which forces him to accept menial work at a car wash. While begrudgingly doing his duties, he fantasizes about the executive life, and imagines himself sitting in an air-conditioned office (as compared to the reality of working “at this indoor Niagara Falls”), smoking cigars, drinking martinis, appearing in high-society magazines, and making sexual remarks at his secretary. The original title of the song was “I got them steadily depressing, low down, mind messing, working at the car wash blues” (as sung in the song); However, it was shortened before the single’s release.