9 to 5 (Sheena Easton song)
"9 to 5", with text and lyrics by Florrie Palmer is the title of a popular song recorded by Sheena Easton in 1980, becoming her first major hit, peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in 1981. The title of the song was changed to "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" for its North American release to avoid confusion with the Dolly Parton song of the same name: "9 to 5".
Parton's song is about female liberation (as is the film it was featured in), while Easton's song is about a woman who waits at home all day for her man to come home from work. The music video was filmed on the Bluebell Railway, a heritage line running between East and West Sussex in England. The video stars London and South Western Railway No. 488, a preserved LSWR 0415 Class locomotive.
Appearances in Other Media
The tune was featured in the 2004 movie Eurotrip as the Manchester United Supporters Club theme and was also played as part of a montage in two episodes of Seinfeld: "The Bizarro Jerry" episode in which Kramer finds himself working 9 to 5 at Brand/Leland, and "The Butter Shave" episode in which George fakes a handicap at Play Now.
The song also features in a sketch in Not The Nine O'Clock News, in which Pamela Stephenson sings it in relation to her "husband", Rowan Atkinson. Atkinson, having come home from work, corrects Stephenson's lyrics ("I don't take the train, I take a bloody bus", Stephenson obligingly changes the lyrics), before revealing that "he spends all day with a whore" (again sung by Stephenson) and attempting to kill her. The sketch ends with Stephenson singing "and then he tries to strangle me".
In an episode of South Park ("Kenny Dies"), Eric Cartman briefly sings the song as he happens upon a truck that went off the side of a road.
In an episode of the 1997 sitcom Soul Man, Anthony Clark's character begins to play the song on a church organ.
On the season 26 finale episode of Saturday Night Live (host: Christopher Walken; musical guest: Weezer), in a Mango sketch, Mango (Chris Kattan) sings "Morning Train" as he's working out in his dressing room.
In the Drawn Together episode "Xandir and Tim, Sitting in a Tree", Jimmy Kimmel sings the song during a story in which Spanky Ham has left the Drawn Together house and taken a 9 to 5 job as a hostage negotiator.
The song was also featured in an advertisement for Connex Melbourne where a trainload of passengers take turns in singing a line from her song while the train pulls up at Burnley railway station. When the train stops, Sheena boards the train. One of the passengers says "Sheena!" Sheena then replies with a scream and the ad concludes with all the passengers singing the chorus of the song as a shot is shown of the train leaving the station.
Swedish-born Norwegian singer Elisabeth Andreasson covered the song in Swedish, as "Han pendlar varje dag" (which means "He commutes every day") with the new lyrics by Olle Bergman, on her 1981 album "Angel of the Morning". This version also stayed at Svensktoppen for 9 weeks during the period 21 February-18 April 1982, with a 4th place as best result there.
In France, Sylvie Vartan also scored a significant hit with a "Morning Train" cover. Though her version is musically coherent, Vartan employs notably different lyrics, as evidenced by her recording's title, "L’amour c'est comme une cigarette" ("Love is Like a Cigarette").