Get a Job (song)

"Get a Job" is one of the best known doo-wop songs of the 1950s. Recorded by The Silhouettes in October 1957, the song reached the #1 spot on the Billboard pop and R&B singles charts in February 1958.

"When I was in the service in the early 1950s and didn't come home and go to work my mother said 'Get A Job' and basically that's where the song came from", said tenor Richard Lewis, who wrote the lyrics. [http://www.shanalewis.com/silhouettes/] The four members shared the credit, jointly creating the "sha na na" and "dip dip dip dip" hooks later imitated by other doo-wop groups.

The song was recorded at Robinson Recording Laboratories in Philadelphia in October 1957. Rollie McGill played the saxophone break and the arranger was Howard Biggs. It was released on the Junior label and subsequently licensed to Ember for national distribution.

The Silhouettes performed the song several times on Dick Clark's American Bandstand in early 1958, and it sold more than a million copies.

The song was later featured in the soundtracks of the movies "American Graffiti", "Stand By Me", and "Joey" (in which the group also performed it). The revival group Sha Na Na derived their name from the song's catchy doo-wop introduction. And a local commercial in the mid-1980's for Money Center 24 in the Peoria, Illinois vicinity, featuring the "little green guys" did a spoof of the song as a jingle entitled, "Get A Card".

The song sounds like the musical inspiration behind "Mad", sung on "Sesame Street" by Little Jerry and the Monotones.

External links

* [http://www.thesilhouettes.org/ The Silhouettes]