“Working Girl Blues” was written by Hazel Dickens, the Appalachian singer and songwriter known for her union anthems and her songs of working people. She recorded it with Alice Gerrard, releasing it in the 1970s.
The song is a blue-collar lament sung from a woman’s point of view. The working girl of the title is worn down by long hours and low pay, and the lyric voices the weariness and quiet anger of a life spent laboring for someone else’s profit.
Dickens wrote a body of songs about coal mining, labor, and hard times in Appalachia, and this is one of them.
Assisted by AI.
Spot something off? Help us fix it.
