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The Silhouettes were an American doo wop/R&B group, whose single "Get a Job" was a number 1 chart-topper on the Billboard R&B singles chart and pop singles chart in 1958. The doo-wop revival group Sha Na Na derived their name from the song's lyrics, later going on to perform "Get a Job" in the 1978 movie Grease, and the nickname "Xanana" of former President and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão is in return derived from the name of the band "Sha Na Na", though with the spelling changed to "Xanana" to conform with the spelling rules of both Portuguese and Tetum language, both of East Timor's official languages. "Get a Job" is included in the soundtracks of the films American Graffiti, Trading Places, and Stand by Me. The Silhouettes performed in the 1986 movie Joey.
The lyrics of "Get a Job" are notable for the depiction of a household in tension because of unemployment, despite the man's desperate attempts to find work, all delivered in a relentlessly upbeat style. A second release, "Heading for the Poorhouse", continued the economic theme. It was one of the few songs to allude to inflation, the trip to the poorhouse being because "all our money turned brown." This single and all their subsequent singles sold poorly and the group never entered the national charts again, making them a classic example of "One-hit wonder."
The Silhouettes toured with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Clyde McPhatter, and others. They disbanded in 1968, but the four original members reformed the group in the 1980s and continued to work until 1993.
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