How the word ‘gig’ found a new outlet in the gig economy

In the same song where the brilliant lyricist Ian Dury gave the world the couplet, ‘I could be a writer with a growing reputation/ I could be the ticket-man at Fulham Broadway station’, his narrator speaks of ‘first-night nerves every one-night stand’. Perhaps we are now more accustomed to one-night stand referring to a casual sexual liaison, but in the less metaphorical sense, dating from the 19th century and was later used by Bernard Shaw, it simply means a one-night musical engagement, or gig.

Most popular

Druin Burch

Lucy Letby and the killer nurse I worked with

Gig is first recorded in 1926, in Melody Maker. By 1939 it had given rise to the modern-sounding gigster, someone who plays gigs. Now in our day, it has found a new outlet in the idea of the gig economy. The gig economy gives people one-off odd jobs. They become self-employed or freelance. One online employment exchange is called eLance.