The way I look at it Cat Stevens wrote this song thinking how lucky he was to be a successful musician and not a faceless employee of a company. It also sounds like it was written in times of a recession, where workers rights are trampled on because if you don't go that extra bit for the boss, you could be the next one made redundant. This is what I think the song means. It sums up a job I had in the late 80's early 90's Australia when we were in a deep recession. I worked for a really bad company and the boss knew there were no jobs out there so he treated everyone like crap. People asked for a raise he would say "leave the company if you don't like it". Constant threats of redundancy made workers do stuff in their own time. Also don't be late to work or from a break otherwise you got a written warning... It's definitely a song about the struggling working class against the bosses...
The way I look at it Cat Stevens wrote this song thinking how lucky he was to be a successful musician and not a faceless employee of a company. It also sounds like it was written in times of a recession, where workers rights are trampled on because if you don't go that extra bit for the boss, you could be the next one made redundant. This is what I think the song means. It sums up a job I had in the late 80's early 90's Australia when we were in a deep recession. I worked for a really bad company and the boss knew there were no jobs out there so he treated everyone like crap. People asked for a raise he would say "leave the company if you don't like it". Constant threats of redundancy made workers do stuff in their own time. Also don't be late to work or from a break otherwise you got a written warning... It's definitely a song about the struggling working class against the bosses...