Songfacts®:

• This song tells the story of a man who is out of work and feels shame for being jobless. His friends and family (a very unsupportive bunch) mock him as he queues up in the unemployment line.
  
  The song was written and sung by Styx guitarist Tommy Shaw, whose drew inspiration from his friend Pete, who had been laid off from his job working for a railroad.
  
  "He loved his work, and here he was at the unemployment office, standing in line for a check," Shaw told Guitar Player. "This was devastating to him. He didn't want a handout. I grew up in a blue-collar family, so I understood how he felt. That's what inspired the song lyrically. Then it was just a matter of picking up the guitar and putting it together."
  
  "Styx has never been a political band, but I think we believe the basic things like everybody else: Love each other, respect each other, and work hard," he added. "That's what the song's all about."
• "Blue Collar Man" was the lead single from Styx' eighth album, Pieces Of Eight, released in 1978. The album also includes "Renegade"; neither song was a big hit at the time but they grew wings as Styx became increasingly popular over the next few years thanks to "Babe," MTV and "Mr. Roboto."
• A short clip of this song was used in the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy, where Sandler's character is a huge Styx fan (as is Sandler in real life). The song also show up in the 2001 episode of King Of The Hill, "Chasing Bobby."
• This is one of the song Styx plays at just about every concert. On their 2011 tour, it was their opening number; with unemployment in the United States around 9%, the song was more relevant than ever.
• Tommy Shaw came up with the guitar riff after a pot-fueled deep sea fishing trip. He explained to The A/V Club that their cab driver gave them some potent weed on the way to the boat, which put them in a daze. Says Shaw: "When we booked this fishing boat, we said, 'We are going to be partying. Because we just finished this tour, and we have a cooler and drinks, and I hope you don't mind if we party.' Well, we smoked this pot, and by the time we got on the boat, we were paralyzed. We were, like, stone quiet for the first hour and a half. We finally started coming around a little bit and told [the boat owner] what happened. He's like, 'I wondered what happened to you guys, because you said there was going to be this big party, and you guys haven't said a word.' We're all sitting there in this daze from this pot, and the boat was making this sound: 'mmm mmm mmm.' You are moving slowly when you are trolling through the water. The engines are at really low RPMs. The sound just sort of tattooed itself onto my psyche. And when I got back to the room, I got the acoustic guitar and wrote the music to 'Blue Collar Man.'"
• Tommy Shaw is one of those rockers who connects with blue-collar workers but never had a job outside of music (Bruce Springsteen is another). He did do lots of work playing in bars and honing his craft.
  
  Shaw's songs for Styx tend to be rockin' and relatable, in contrast to his longtime bandmate Dennis DeYoung, who leaned toward love songs ("Lady") and science fiction ("Come Sail Away").