Clockout

Going to forego any research and dive onto it...

This song made me chuckle at first. There's all this exuberance about the end of the work-day, seemingly from the point of view of the employer, who seems to be doing well for himself.

meaning? Ha! meaning in a DeVo song: that's rich. But considering the forum, I may as well give my own impressions.

Damn... see what I mean? I just like the song. It amuses me. Is the speaker happy? Does he care about his clock-punchers, or are they merely cogs to make him more money? Does it matter? what kind of future could be described metaphorically as "maintennance free"? ( A great phrase choice in terms of the salesmanship and business-mentality put forth here). Great stuff. monkey Men all: beware! beware! a cautionary tale from Devo? listen if you are able. -Phase

I think "Clockout" refers to death and the song is mocking the efforts required to participate in the career rat-race as being futile when you consider we will all be dead soon.

I think it's generally about a small business owner (in a live version from San Francisco, 1977, he refers to it as a deli?) who is simply taking a nice vacation, clocking out, ya know?

The "head down to my lungs and move my feet" line is possibly about him dancing to music and/or in a club (or self-fellatio, wouldn't be that strange of a lyrical topic for the spudboys).

"Oh me, I got all the secretaries, down on their knees", workers! They're this guy's workers, and they're on their knees, (doggy submission as DEVO would say,) for their boss, following all orders like obedient dogs, cogs in the system.

"Look at em scoot." is also about his workers. Told in later lines, this guy's doing some real bad stuff, maybe he messed up and he's now got his employees scooting around, trying to save public and/or private image by gathering his company's act together, scooting around on the floor, gathering his dropped papers for him.

"I got my money, tied up in stoOck!" is what it says it is, pretty literal.

"I got ma mammy take my doggie for a walk." he's got his relatives (or even workers, hell, it doesn't sound crazy for this kind of dude to have his own mom be a cog in his clock) to do the work for him, while he get's a nice, relaxing vacation, free from his responsibilities.

"Oh me, I got the biggest little business, down on the block." again, pretty literal, but he's got the biggest little business in his town, dominating all the other little start-up companies.

"I'm makin' sales, hand over fist,-" again again, pretty literal. He's makin his sales through unconventional ways, hacking the system, hand-over-fist exchanges, stepping over the little guy to trade money with the big guy.

"I've got a vacuum just to sweep between my hips" not too sure what it means, my best interpretation is a fleshlight of some 70's sort (song written back in 1974-75), that, or the less-dirty and less-devo-like interpretation, a sort of loofa to clean himself automatically.

"Oh me, I got a six-figure unit, that's never been kissed." pretty literal, but he's got this 6-figure house of some sort, that's he's bought, but never even visited! purely for cosmetic and decorative purposes. Reminds me of that one story from years ago about that like 7 million priced mansion that (i think?) Kanye West bought, but never lived in.

"Take my advice, hear my decree, ohh I'm afraid the future's gonna be, maintenance free." Pretty relevant to modern times, see the big studios wanting to have AI writers do all the work instead of having actual humans that have to have rest-time and be payed for their work! This dude seems to be a bit afraid of that change though, I think he takes pride in having obedient servants work for him, and is afraid that he'll have no workers to take advantage of, what an almost cartoon-level villain we got here! But not so-cartoonish when you realize there's alotta people out there who are like this, de-evolution is real people!

"I got the big brush for your bowl, baby, can't you dig my plea?!" Pretty simple if you know DEVO's 70's vocab that they frequently used in their writing. The "big brush" is his dick, and this sexual partner's "bowl" is their asshole, or vagina, who knows (I'm betting on asshole, my evidence is Jerry's hand motions when he does this song live). And the whole "dig my plea" thing is him wanting sex from this partner, maybe even pleading with them to accept his, uh, "big brush".

And last but, yeah probably least, "Gonna gag, unless we clock-out" is probably just referring to how "hard" he thinks he works, and how "deserving" he is of a break, talking about how he's about to gag and pass out from the "stress".

TLDR; 'greedy business guy who takes advantage of his workers goes on a vacation and (probably) has sex' is my interpretation of this absolutely banger song.

(also, I'll acknowledge this rn, but I know I probably got alot wrong here, but this is my, currently, best interpretation of this song.)

CLOCK... OUOUUUUUTTTT!!!!!!