Essentially the song is about being in a job that makes you happy.
Dury claimed, in a 1984 interview with Penthouse magazine that, while not condemning 9-to-5 jobs, he had written the song to make people question their lives, echoing the sentiments of his earlier single "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll".
The song's verses list a number of occupations that the narrator could have taken, including driver, poet, teacher and soldier, even an inmate in a long-term institution and the ticket man at Fulham Broadway tube station.
The chorus reveals that instead he chose to "play the fool in a six-piece band", highlighting some of its disadvantages, particularly loneliness, before deciding that "rock 'n' roll don't mind".

The song was written with Rod Melvin in mid-1975, two years before its eventual release.
It was written following the break-up of Kilburn and the Highroads, and in a lull between the formation of Ian Dury & the Kilburns.
Originally a third writing credit was given to Jankel, Dury's long-term songwriting companion, but this credit has gradually been phased out and the 2004 Edsel Records re-issue of Do it Yourself credits the song solely to Dury/Melvin.
In the 2004 book Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Song By Song by Jim Drury and Phill Jupitus, however, guitarist John Turnbull claims that the middle instrumental section was brought over from one of the songs which four Blockhead members had written between them while in their previous band Loving Awareness.

The song, Dury's first hit, was released in April 1978, just before the start of a headlining tour, entering the Top 75 on 29 April and spending 12 weeks there.
It peaked at No.
9 in the UK Single Charts, becoming Stiff Records' biggest-selling single.
A very limited 12" pressing was also released.
Although the song is seen as specifically a Blockheads song, the B-side, "Wake Up and Make Love with Me", was taken from Dury's New Boots and Panties!!
album.
Essentially the song is about being in a job that makes you happy. Dury claimed, in a 1984 interview with Penthouse magazine that, while not condemning 9-to-5 jobs, he had written the song to make people question their lives, echoing the sentiments of his earlier single "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll". The song's verses list a number of occupations that the narrator could have taken, including driver, poet, teacher and soldier, even an inmate in a long-term institution and the ticket man at Fulham Broadway tube station. The chorus reveals that instead he chose to "play the fool in a six-piece band", highlighting some of its disadvantages, particularly loneliness, before deciding that "rock 'n' roll don't mind".
The song was written with Rod Melvin in mid-1975, two years before its eventual release. It was written following the break-up of Kilburn and the Highroads, and in a lull between the formation of Ian Dury & the Kilburns. Originally a third writing credit was given to Jankel, Dury's long-term songwriting companion, but this credit has gradually been phased out and the 2004 Edsel Records re-issue of Do it Yourself credits the song solely to Dury/Melvin. In the 2004 book Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Song By Song by Jim Drury and Phill Jupitus, however, guitarist John Turnbull claims that the middle instrumental section was brought over from one of the songs which four Blockhead members had written between them while in their previous band Loving Awareness.
The song, Dury's first hit, was released in April 1978, just before the start of a headlining tour, entering the Top 75 on 29 April and spending 12 weeks there. It peaked at No. 9 in the UK Single Charts, becoming Stiff Records' biggest-selling single. A very limited 12" pressing was also released. Although the song is seen as specifically a Blockheads song, the B-side, "Wake Up and Make Love with Me", was taken from Dury's New Boots and Panties!! album.
The Blockheads