Morning Train (Nine To Five)

Album: Sheena Easton (1980)
Charted: 3 1
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  • Lyrics currently unavailable Writer/s: FLORRIE PALMER
    Publisher: BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

Comments: 9

  • Padraig from Nowhere In ParticularThis is quite a bizarre song that manages to be heartwarmingly cute and naggingly disturbing at the same time, and it is precisely its outward ordinariness that makes it so bizarre.

    A young woman recently got married and settles down with her husband in what is obviously suburbia. She is happy, because she got married to a man she loves, and who loves her back and cares for her. He goes to work - well, he takes the train to get to work - and she waits for him all day long until he gets back home and they do "everything she wants" together using his hard-earned income. Afterwards, at night, they make passionate love. How cute! How heartwarmingly cute!

    And yet, you somehow want to shout at her: "Girl what you're doing? Why settle for a suburban housewife's life before you even are one? Don't just wait for your man to come home! Get out! Educate yourself! Do something useful with your time! It's now or never!" Because: why do they make love at night? To get her pregnant, of course. For her to consequently become a stay-at-home mum.

    Now, the song implies that there is nothing wrong with preparing for a stay-at-home mum life. That it is wonderful, that it is as it should be. Or does it?

    Because, even in its superficial cheerfulness there is a, how shall I put this, ... darkness in there - and this is what elevates the song beyond its outwardly simple message. She is mind-numbingly bored all day. There are no kids yet, so she cannot perform the mum duties her marital arrangement has predestined her for. You can't help but wonder if, during the long hours before her man comes back, she does not secretly question her choice, her destiny, and the way the lyrics are written it is very much implied that she does. The hidden message is this: she is outwardly cheerful all the time and would never show to be anything but ... but is she really?

    We don't know. And maybe she made the right choice. Maybe she is now, 45 years later, a happy grandmother looking back at a life full of love and caring-sharing. Maybe that is not exactly the case, but life is never perfect, and it was, after all, a better choice than any possible alternative. Maybe.
  • How Dare They from New York StateDoes anybody know the name of the man in the video?
  • Suga from Australia"I'm makin' a fool, a fight"
    Misheard lyric - it's:
    "Amazingly full of fight"
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyThe week that Sheena Easton's "Morning Train (9 to 5)" peaked at #1 on Billboard's Top 100 chart, Dolly Parton's completely different "9 to 5" was at #51 the Top 100 chart, ten weeks earlier it had peaked at #1 {for 2 non-consecutive weeks}.
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn March 28th 1981, Sheena Easton performed "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" on the ABC-TV program 'American Bandstand'...
    At the time the song was at #14 on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; and on April 26th, 1981 it would peak at #1 for two weeks...
    {See second post below}.
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn November 17th 1984, Sheena Easton performed "Strut" on the ABC-TV program 'American Bandstand'...
    At the time the song was at #8 on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; the very next day on Nov. 18th it peaked at #7 {for 1 week}...
    It was the fifth of her eight Top 10 records; her first Top 10 hit was "Morning Train {Nine to Five)".
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn February 7th 1981, "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" by Sheena Easton entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at #74; and on April 26th it peaked at #1 (for 2 weeks) and spent 21 weeks on the Top 100 (and for 6 of those 21 weeks it was on the Top 10)...
    And on the same day it reached #1 on the Top 100 it also peaked at #1 (again for 2 weeks) on Billboard's Adult contemporary Tracks chart...
    It also reached #1 in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand...
    The two weeks it was at #1 on the Top 100, the #2 record for both those weeks was "Just The Two Of Us" by Grover Washington Jr. (with Bill Withers)...
    Ms. Easton, born Sheena Shirley Orr, will celebrate her 55th birthday in two months on April 27th (2014).
  • Esskayess from Dallas, TxPlease don't remind us of that pathetic Prince product. He should have been slapped silly for writing it.
  • Tanya from La Verne, CaA sweet tune by the same woman that, in a couple of years, would invite you into her "Sugar Walls".
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