“Blue Collar Man” by Styx

"Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)" is Tommy Shaw's working-stiff anthem, first released in 1978 as the lead single from Pieces of Eight, the eighth Styx studio album, and it resurfaces on the band's 2011 EP Regeneration Volume II. Shaw wrote it after watching a friend lose his railroad job and stew in the unemployment line, a guy who wanted work, not handouts. The riff, as the story goes, came from his motorboat engine sputtering and refusing to start.

The song sits in D minor and chugs like a machine shop on a double shift, all tension and grind. The original single came out in two seven-inch versions, one backed with "Superstars" from The Grand Illusion and the other with the instrumental "Aku-Aku", and some copies pressed on translucent blue vinyl are now prized by collectors.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.