Avatar Eight Days a Week

This week I’ve been working for eight days in a row. I started last Friday and I’ve been at work every day afterwards, including today. This has given me a unique perspective on the Beatles song, “Eight Days A Week”, which previously was a complete mystery to me.

In this post I hope to explain its deeply meaningful lyrics to those of you unfortunate enough to have never worked eight days in a row.

“Ooh I need your love babe
Guess you know it’s true”
When you work eight days in a row you need a lot of things, like money for journeys to work and lunches, and clean work clothes. Here Lennon and McCartney are using “love” as a metaphor for all these things.

“Hope you need my love babe
Just like I need you”
Working eight days in a row is usually done for overtime. These lines are probably about needing the money.

“Hold me, love me, hold me, love me
Ain’t got nothing but love babe
Eight days a week”
When you work eight days in a row it might feel like your workplace holds you, in the sense that you always seem to be within its embrace and it is never far from your mind. In these lines, “love” has become a metaphor meaning “employ”. Lennon and McCartney were masters of using metaphors like this.

“Eight days a week
I love you
Eight days a week
Is not enough to show I care”
In the chorus, the protagonist of Lennon and McCartney’s song, who has been working eight days in a row, has found his morale and enthusiasm for his job has increased due to his increased contact with it. In this passage, “love” has become a metaphor for loving your job.

Lennon and McCartney probably both worked eight days in a row at some point as their exceptional grasp of this experience shows. I hope this has been an insight for you into this fascinating world. Perhaps, if you’ve worked eight days in a row, you could share your experiences with us all.

13 comments on “Eight Days a Week

  • I once worked six days in a row. I’m nowhere near understanding what this song means. I could try to do eight days in a row but the building is closed at a weekend and I don’t have clearance to get in.

    I feel so funky.

  • You ARE so funky. One of the things that “Eight Days A Week” doesn’t discuss is how funky you are. At no point do Lennon and McCartney use “love” as a metaphor for how funky you are. I think this is a real shame.

  • I had noticed but I didn’t want to mention it for fear of diverting away from the main issue at hand, that being you and your eight day work marathon.

    Tell me, have you come up with an effective name for it yet, like the Marshall-thon?

  • What about Chris Marshall’s House Party? It might confuse people when they turn up for ‘Grab a Grand’ and you force them to watch you work continuously for eight days in a row.

  • No, I’m not sure about that. I don’t have a house and it wasn’t a party.

    I would be willing to consider “Live and Chrising”, but only if Andi Peters was available to take part.

  • That I can’t promise but it you’re willing to write me a blank cheque I can guarantee Pat Sharpe and the twins Melanie and Martina.

  • I’m terrified at the fact that you can actually remember the names of the twins from Fun House. I run away, scared, into the woods, like a startled deer.

  • I remember a lot of things, like the spoken word intro to the ‘Super Mario Bros 3’ cartoon series.

    I did a lot with my life…

  • All the time. I mean I’ve never shunted my wing trimmings like Kev does in his house but I’ve done many.

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