Song #99: Steve Azar - "I Don't Have to Be Me ('Til Monday)" (2001)
Waitin' On Joe
"Three days without punching a time-clock, three nights going nonstop. No work and all play."
Usually
once a year, around mid-to-early April, my father will call me out of
school so we can go to the home opener for the Midwest League team the
Kane County Cougars. Half the time, I really don't need to be called
out, with the games starting at 6:30pm for the last couple of years, but
what makes it great is I get the whole day to catch up on reviews, eat
breakfast with my father, hang out with his good friend who also called
off work, go out to dinner and eat, and then end the night with some
relaxing baseball at a stadium I know about as well as my own home.
Steve Azar's biggest hit of his career, "I Don't Have to Be Me ('Til Monday)," is usually the song of that day, with Azar singing about how one Friday morning, he isn't feeling work, and decides to call in sick, saying his back hurts as his alibi, before embracing his day off in style. The song is simplicity itself, about a man who is just happy to be free from the confines of a nine-to-five shift and living life without the burden of a schedule.
"I can do what I want to do, be who I want to be. I got no one to answer to as soon as I turn the key. Cash machine, gasoline, and we're out of here," Azar sings in the song's second verse, perfectly replicating the joys of an off day. You don't have to get dressed if you don't want to, you can stay home, go out, act differently, and disregard all outside authority whatsoever.
I was obsessed with country music when I was younger (think age three to eight), drifted into rock up until about age twelve, embraced rap from age twelve to fourteen, and since then I've been circumventing all genres. My mother got Azar's sophomore album Waitin' on Joe because I was so obsessed with the music video for "I Don't Have to Be Me ('Til Monday)" and I recall her playing it in her car while I'd sing along in the backseat. This song bears too many good memories and visiting it every year is like rekindling with that someone who never changed.
Give "I Don't Have to Be Me ('Til Monday)" a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoirXf1i3GY
Steve Azar's biggest hit of his career, "I Don't Have to Be Me ('Til Monday)," is usually the song of that day, with Azar singing about how one Friday morning, he isn't feeling work, and decides to call in sick, saying his back hurts as his alibi, before embracing his day off in style. The song is simplicity itself, about a man who is just happy to be free from the confines of a nine-to-five shift and living life without the burden of a schedule.
"I can do what I want to do, be who I want to be. I got no one to answer to as soon as I turn the key. Cash machine, gasoline, and we're out of here," Azar sings in the song's second verse, perfectly replicating the joys of an off day. You don't have to get dressed if you don't want to, you can stay home, go out, act differently, and disregard all outside authority whatsoever.
I was obsessed with country music when I was younger (think age three to eight), drifted into rock up until about age twelve, embraced rap from age twelve to fourteen, and since then I've been circumventing all genres. My mother got Azar's sophomore album Waitin' on Joe because I was so obsessed with the music video for "I Don't Have to Be Me ('Til Monday)" and I recall her playing it in her car while I'd sing along in the backseat. This song bears too many good memories and visiting it every year is like rekindling with that someone who never changed.
Give "I Don't Have to Be Me ('Til Monday)" a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoirXf1i3GY
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