A song by
They Might Be Giants off their 3rd album
Flood. The song is only 47 seconds long and consists only of the lyrics "Minimum wage!" followed by a whipcrack and a nice little synth melody. While the song seems incredibly simple, like all
TMBG songs, it still manages to garner a suprising amount of interpretations. A la
Particle Man,
The End of the Tour,
Hot Cha,
Ana Ng and many many more.
The most popular intepretation is that the song simply represents the pain of being a slave to the typical, everyday minimum wage job. The whipcrack symbolizes that pain, since frequently throughout time, various indentured servants have been struck with whips to stay in line.
Intepretations have also been made about the song's short length, saying it is representative of the small reward that minimum wage workers get for working such difficult jobs.
The song has two synth lines, one very comforting and smooth, the other a bit more urgent which begs the intrepetation of some that believe the song has a city vs. country theme. Stating that while minimum wage can feel like slavery in a city. However, in the country, it's more likely to live a comfortable life on minimum wage.
The song features John Flansburgh on vocals, John Linnell on keyboards and in a guest apperance on the whip is Roger Moutenot, who mixed "Flood."