Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)

"Blue Collar Man" was written in 1978 by Tommy Shaw. At the time, he was living in Michigan and had friends who worked for the auto industry in Detroit. This song is the unemployed worker's lament and a vow to keep his dignity despite the stigma of unemployment.

Song about being a male escort? It is to laugh. I nearly did a spit-take when I read that.

I think this song is about starting over and become someone trusting and reliable rather then a wanderer. Becoming a man with a business and starts a family maybe.

A lot of Styx songs don't have that "deeper meaning" that people try to find in songs. Sorry, many just DON'T have it...the meaning is directly in the lyrics, and usually has no depth whatsoever...not all Styx songs, but many. This isn't an insult to them, and although it is usually considered to be a trademark of a rather non-imaginative lyricist, Styx pull it off very well.

That being said...they're absolutely fantastic. Excellent vocal and musical work make the classic songs hundreds of times better than most modern music.

"keeping my eye to the keyhole" refers to, in this particular lyrical context, working a bad job and listening through the upper staff's door keyholes (literally) to hear about new job advancement opportunities.

This song is fantastic...but attempting to draw depth from it is a lost cause.

spiegelglanz, nice interpretation, but I'm sure even you can see it's stretched razor-thin. I wonder if Styx intentionally did this, to make people wonder about the lyrics, because people always have for as long as music with vocals has existed.

I've always liked this song. He's unemployed and wants work. He's not scared of working hard and he doesn't want charity. He's a blue collar man, and there's nothing wrong with that. (The ones I've met have way more fun than the uptight tie-wearing, tv-watching, arrogant old crowd.)

How did this become a conversation about how Styx got their name? Well whatever, here's what I think the song means: This is in the time of the great depression, where work is had to come by and people would line up in the streets to get food for their families. These unemployed men would hang their heads in shame as they walked through the line. Hence the "Unemployment line" He wants to not only find a job, but be the head of the job. A "Blue Collar" is a man who's usually a manager or a head. The workers would wear white button ups, and the blue collars were the managers. He wants to be a "blue collar man." He's wiling to work with everything he has to get financial security for his family, even though everyone may laugh at him as he walks through the line. He will take long nights, and every risk, keeping his mind on the goal ahead of him keeping his "eye to the keyhole." He's waiting for a job offer that will get him to his goal, that will finally make him a "respectable man." He dreams of a paradise where he isn't just scrapping by, but living his life without worry. He's "keeping [his] mind on a better life" knowing that the life he's sure he's destined for is ahead of him. How you take a song about someone working their everything into making a better life for him and his family and make it into a song about a "Male Escort" I have no idea. If this song is about that, then explain phrases like "Unemployment Line" and the very title itself. What does being a "blue collar man" have to do with prostitution? I know that some bands hide their song meanings under a guise of meaning something else, but Styx isn't that crafty, their quite to the point in their songs. Like "Grand Illusion" being about America's twisted idea of the "perfect life" and how it's, quite literally, the Grand Illusion.

i know the Styx is a river of some sort in some interpretations of hell; any catholics or others out there that know exactly what function that river served?

I don't know this cause I'm Catholic, its from Greek Mythology. The river Styx is one of the four rivers in hell, stepping in it would cause you to lose your memory.

The River Styx is from Greek mythology. It was the river of life and death, and stepping in it caused you to be immune to attacks -- but only the part of your body that was submerged. If any part of your body wasn't in the water, you could be killed. Achilles was dipped in the river as a baby by his mother, but he was held by his heel. Eventually, in a war, he was killed by a poison arrow in his heel. His heel was his only weak spot -- Achilles' heel.

This song is mostly about this man who did not have a job and he is talking to someone to get a job I wonder if Tommy Shaw wrote it

Yes, I believe it's a Tommy Shaw song.