Released: September 1, 1978
Songwriter: Tommy Shaw
Producer: John Panozzo Dennis DeYoung James Young Chuck Panozzo Tommy Shaw
[Verse 1]
Give me a job, give me security
Give me a chance to survive
I'm just a poor soul in the unemployment line
My God, I'm hardly alive
My mother and father, my wife and my friends
I see them laugh in my face
But I've got the power, and I've got the will
I'm not a charity case
[Hook]
I'll take those long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my eye to the keyhole
If it takes all that to be just what I am
I'm gonna be a blue collar man
[Verse 2]
Make me an offer that I can't refuse
Make me respectable, man
This is my last time in the unemployment line
So like it or not, I'll take those
[Chorus]
Long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my back to the wall
If it takes all that to be just what I am
I'm gonna be a blue collar man
[Bridge 1]
Keeping my mind on a better life
Where happiness is only a heartbeat away
Paradise, can it be all I heard it was
I close my eyes and maybe I'm already there
Ooh yeah
[Chorus]
I'll take those long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my back to the wall
All that to be just what I am
I'm gonna be a blue collar man
[Bridge 2]
Do do do do do do do do
(You don't understand)
Do do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do do do
[Chorus]
I'll take those long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my eye to the keyhole
If it takes all that to be just what I am
I'm gonna be a blue collar
Gotta be a blue collar
Gonna be a blue collar man
[Outro]
Alright!
Believe it
Give me a job, give me security
Give me a chance to survive
I'm just a poor soul in the unemployment line
My God, I'm hardly alive
My mother and father, my wife and my friends
I see them laugh in my face
But I've got the power, and I've got the will
I'm not a charity case
[Hook]
I'll take those long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my eye to the keyhole
If it takes all that to be just what I am
I'm gonna be a blue collar man
[Verse 2]
Make me an offer that I can't refuse
Make me respectable, man
This is my last time in the unemployment line
So like it or not, I'll take those
[Chorus]
Long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my back to the wall
If it takes all that to be just what I am
I'm gonna be a blue collar man
[Bridge 1]
Keeping my mind on a better life
Where happiness is only a heartbeat away
Paradise, can it be all I heard it was
I close my eyes and maybe I'm already there
Ooh yeah
[Chorus]
I'll take those long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my back to the wall
All that to be just what I am
I'm gonna be a blue collar man
[Bridge 2]
Do do do do do do do do
(You don't understand)
Do do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do do do
[Chorus]
I'll take those long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my eye to the keyhole
If it takes all that to be just what I am
I'm gonna be a blue collar
Gotta be a blue collar
Gonna be a blue collar man
[Outro]
Alright!
Believe it
- Pieces of Eight (1978)
- Classics Volume 15 (1987)
- Greatest Hits (1995)
- Pure Rock 1978 - The History of Rockmusic (1998)
- Rockers (2003)
- Come Sail Away: The Styx Anthology (2004)
- One with Everything (2006)
- Renegade
- Mr. Roboto
- Babe
- Too Much Time on My Hands
- Boat on the River
- Come Sail Away
- Lady
- The Best of Times
- Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)
- Show Me the Way
- The Grand Illusion
- Don’t Let It End
- Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)
- Crystal Ball
- Rockin’ the Paradise [Caught in the Act]
- Snowblind
- Miss America
- Pieces of Eight
- Suite Madame Blue
- Sing for the Day
- Man in the Wilderness
- Lorelei
- Hallelujah Chorus
- What Has Come Between Us