9 to 5

She wrote it for the 1980 comedy 9 to 5, her film debut, in which she starred with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Film and song take their titles from 9to5, an organization founded in 1973 for fair pay and equal treatment for women at work. It opens the album 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs and was released as a single in November 1980. It reached number one on the country chart in January 1981, and in February number one on both the Hot 100 and the adult contemporary chart. It was her only solo number one on the Hot 100. She said she made the typewriter rhythm by running her acrylic fingernails against each other, and on the record Gregg Perry played typewriter.

The song earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and won the Grammys for Best Country Song and Best Country Vocal Performance, Female at the 24th Grammy Awards. It ranked number 78 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Songs in 2004. Rolling Stone called it her "most transformative song." In the UK it peaked at number 47 in 1981, but after her death in 2026 it entered the top 40 for the first time and climbed to number five. A lawsuit claiming it copied a 1976 song, Money World, was decided in her favor in December 1985. On the night she died the Empire State Building was lit pink at 9:25 p.m.