Songfacts®:

• This toast to clocking off work and going home to crack open a six-pack was recorded by Chris Janson for his Real Friends album. The singer penned the song with his "Say About Me" collaborators Tommy Cecil and Shy Carter, plus Music Row hitmaker Craig Wiseman.
• The song originated with a single line that Craig Wiseman came up with:
  
  Waitin' on 5 to start on 6
  
  Rather than gathering in a room to expand on the idea, the four songwriters worked separately, going back and forth with each other through emails and phone calls. They then merged their ideas together and came up with "Waitin' on 5."
• Janson explained to The Boot the song is "a true testament to guys like my dad, who work a 9-to-5 job every single day, and they're just waiting on 5 o'clock to roll around so they can go home and just do something."
• The song's music video, which was filmed in a socially distanced shoot in Greenbriar, Tennessee, spotlights some hard-working men and women. They include Janson's father, who appears in his real-life role of an auto body painter. The singer's father-in-law can also be spotted in the clip.
  
  "I have so much respect for the hard-working men and women in this country," Janson explained. "I am proud to count members of my own family, like my dad and father-in-law, among them. This song and the video are my way of honoring what they and so many others do every day - and encouraging them to have a little fun when the job is done!"
• Chris Janson explained to ABC Audio the song is not only a nine-to-fiver's anthem, but has another sentiment too. "'Waitin' on 5' to get started on six, and we all know what that means," he said. "It could be six o'clock, it could be a six-pack, it could really be whatever you want it to be."