To Keep Our Numbers Up Song

2018-09-22 22:18:03-0400

To Keep Our Numbers Up
Aug 14, 2017
Rev Aug 1 2018
Rev Sept 22 2018

I actually do this in D now!

DM7 Asus7

A:

Asus7                          DM7
To Keep Our Numbers Up
      D6                   Em7
We have to let you go.
         A7                       F#m7
This quarter, sales are down,
      GM7                    Asus7 A7
Our price-to-earning's low.

A7sus             A7            DM7
So please clear out your desk.
        D6                    EM7
and fill out all these forms.
           A7                    F#m7
We're right-sizing the staff,
      Em7     DM7      (GM7 DM7)
To calm financial storms.

B:

  DM7                              Gm7 FM7
Our brick and mortars have to close,
 FM7                        Gm7          FM7
We're sorry but you have been canned.
   FM7                          Gm7       FM7
We're training your replacement now,
  FM7                   Asus7
Disruption is our brand.

A:
We're sunsetting your work
And writing it off as "loss"
Our acquisition group
Has just outsourced your boss.

We're giving all your tasks
To someone in Ukraine,
We're sure that you will find

Employment once again.


B:

Your health insurance you have lost
With COBRA, you'll pay twice as much,
Go freshen up your resumé,

Too bad you aren't Dutch.


A:
Try networking online
And liquidate some stocks,
Th'Economy's not bad,
It's you that's on the rocks!



The Gig Economy
Is what the Job God wrought
It's "Uber" über alles

Experience counts for naught.

The Rich Are Just Not Rich Enough Song

2017-09-08 11:09:42-0400

I'm working on a new song for May 1st. Or whenever.

The Rich Are Just Not Rich Enough

Revisions:
Apr 13, 2017, May 23 2017, June 28 2017

Verse:
The rich are just not rich enough,
That's why we'll mine our parks for coal.
That's why we must defund the arts,
Our health, our rights, our earth, our soul.

The tax they think is "way too high"
Is sparsely paid in any case.
The representatives they buy
Well represent their wealthy base.

Chorus:
The rich are just not rich enough!
That principle guides our new laws,
Amassing wealth among themselves
They're never satisfied,
They're never satisfied!

Verse:
The rich are just not rich enough,
That's why not everyone can vote.
To do so poses too much risk.
We can't afford not to promote

The well earned income of the rich,
So well earned that they must earn more.
Their labor is more worthy than
The worker's labor in their store.

Chorus

Verse:
The rich are just not rich enough
That's why we now have endless war.
That's why we pay for both sides' arms
And pocket dollars caked in gore.

The rich are just not rich enough,
It's not enough that they are rich,
All others must as well be poor -
Including those who once were rich.

Too Big To Fail Song

2017-01-22 02:13:25-0500

It's May 1st, and it's probably a good day to reveal a song I've been working on, to be an anthem of the Occupy Movement (for lack of a better term).  In the tradition of many political songs, it borrows a tune and fits sometimes cumbersome lyrics to it. In this case, the song is a song once considered a candidate for the National Anthem, Chester.

The original Chester goes like this, original lyrics by Wm. Billings, 1777:

1. Let tyrants shake their iron rod
And slav'ry clank her galling chains
We fear them not; we trust in God
New England's God forever reigns.

2. Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton, too,
With Prescott and Cornwallis joined,
Together plot our overthrow,
In one infernal league combined.

3. When God inspired us for the fight
Their ranks were broke; their lines were forced
Their ships were shattered in our sight
Or swiftly driven from our shore.

4. The foe comes on with haughty stride
Our troops advance with martial noise
Their veterans flee before our youth
And generals yield to beardless boys.

5. What grateful off'ring shall we bring,
What shall we render to the Lord?
Loud hallelujahs let us sing,
And praise his name on ev'ry chord!

It's a little too much "God , specifically New England's God, is on our side," but you can't beat the sauciness of verse 4!

It's easy to find Chester performed by various groups on the Internet, but I don't like the arrangements, and often it's ponderous and slow - Chester is a feisty, mocking song! My arrangement is more sprightly and has more color in the chords. I'll put up a recording some time, But I can post the chords which go more or less with the original melody. It's in F here, but that's just because I like F - put it where the crowd's voice is happiest, like "The People's Key: G! (or E, or Bb...)."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Too Big To Fail
Lyrics: J. H. H. Lowengard
To the tune of "Chester" (William Billings)

Dec 2014, Apr 2015

F          Dm7       Bb      C7    F
Too big to fail, too rich to go to jail!
F6           Dm7               Bb          C7
Bad mortgage backed securities ended in default.
F   Bb         F             Dm7    
We bailed them out and their bonuses were paid.
Dm        Am        Bb  Bb6     Bb   C7      F    
Shielding their tax obligations in a foreign vault.


Too big to fail, too rich to go to jail!
Bad mortgage backed securities ended in default.
We bailed them out and their bonuses were paid.
Shielding their tax obligations in a foreign vault.

Fighting a war against an abstract foe,
Eavesdropping without warrants on every message sent
They alienate our unalienable rights
And our treasure trickles up to less than one percent.

Only the little people pay their tax!
Those blessed with lucre ke-ep their wealth in offshore banks.
They pit all others against themselves.
Our infrastructure fails, policemen now drive tanks.

They buy the laws to help secure their wealth,
Mayors and representatives grovel for their cash.
They own the news and they profit from unrest,
But expect protection from a stock market crash.

Even the courts are subject to their will
Now that there are no li-imits, they are free to spend
Buying elections like they are buying wine
Crip'ling governmental programs on which we depend.

Riots and wars, environmental waste,
They sow our amber waves with artificial seed
They put their profits before our need, and
Sacrifice the common good for their own reckless greed.

What can we do to fight this noisome plague?
Protests and signed petitions influence them not -
Let us proceed with a world wide general strike!
And reclaim the people's power that we have forgot!

On Farmas Flot: Dorian mode folksong in an invented Scandinavian language

On farmas flot min lufa stehet
Magre bene o tyn carn insammet
Teth så gertist o mymtisk desut
Ved basseten en thermet vealant noe tilkren
Not verbi veynmer utmot textra ventral
vestrans werolm peoplen temtor fentrost
et emmtrenge trowbt theng ecte e
dust imgovervigs td ventrent verts thotu
hemeds kurtt tyr trygget venathengte
mattensk matter

The Bastard's Lovely Daughter

This is an old folk song I wrote in 1987, when I was a big fan of the Fast Folk Musical Magazine and their monthly shows at the Bottom Line, the Speakeasy and other defunct NYC venues.

The lyrics could stand a little updating, but it is a political - kinda - song! When I wrote it, I was thinking of ballads of beautiful daughters of thieves and robbers, just updated for their contemporary counterpart. And there's not a little of "Love Me,
Love Me, Love Me, I'm a Liberal" in there too.

Disclaimer portion: It's also not at all a song about close relative of mine who was briefly married to a famous (liberal) politician's daughter.


Verse:

It's six o'clock and at the factory gate
A man is smiling, shaking hands with the assembly line.
Here's the TV crew from channel Eight,
He'll help the factory close next month but now he's looking fine.

Have you heard the promises before?
Have you read the things he voted for?
We elected him, he's ours. Drives around in chauffered cars.
In exclusive Capitol bars, he's quite a bore.

But Oh that bastard has a lovely daughter,
The sweetest woman ever came to Washington D.C.
A cultured tongue, a mannered hand, a well-kept figure
Think she'd ever come to love a liberal like me?

Verse 2:

In fifty-two he found a commie plot
By schoolteachers and actors and some guys who owed him cash,
He thinks about those vivid times a lot,
When single-handed he could yank on Stalin's big moustache.

Have you heard the promises before?
Have you read the things he voted for?
He'll take take cash from any hand, can be bought for seven grand,
Treads on honor as on sand, sells out the poor -

But Oh that bastard has a lovely daughter,
The sweetest woman ever came to Washington D.C.
A cultured tongue, a mannered hand, a well-kept figure
Think she'd ever come to love a liberal like me?

Verse 3:

He's toasted by the racists and the mobs,
For writing them amendments which he puts in every bill.
He's given all his relatives their jobs,
And everyone he knows has got their hands deep in the till.

Have you heard the promises before?
Have you read the things he voted for?
He had bugged a circuit judge, On abortion he won't budge,
Cleaning up the toxic sludge Is not his chore...

But Oh that bastard has a lovely daughter,
The sweetest woman ever came to Washington D.C.
A cultured tongue, a mannered hand, a well-kept figure
Think she'd ever come to love a liberal like me?

Verse 4:

I hope she isn't much like her old man,
I've seen her talk to blacks and give some quarters to a bum,
I saw her protest weapons to Iran.
I know she cheers the Skins whenever football season comes.

She hates "Dynasty" and MTV
Shops with coupons at the A&P
Though my income she won't need, She did not inherit greed,
When her dad has gone to seed She'll marry me.

And Oh that bastard has a lovely daughter,
The sweetest woman ever came to Washington D.C.
A cultured tongue, a mannered hand, a well-kept figure
Think she'd ever come to love a liberal like me?



// new verse 4 needed? after all, who knows what I'm talking about there!

Verse 4:

She's never shown an interest in me
Although gives to Greenpeace and protests the NRA
She's virtuous and also quite PC -
I saw her march with lesbians on last St. Patrick's Day!

She recycles plastic, glass and cans
Never air conditions, only fans.
Though she's living off her trust, It don't mean that she's unjust,
When her dad has gone to dust I'll be her man!

And Oh that bastard has a lovely daughter,
The sweetest woman ever came to Washington D.C.
A cultured tongue, a mannered hand, a well-kept figure
Think she'd ever come to love a liberal like me?

Cyberspace Cowboy

The kernal's full of patches and the protocols are slow
So I just hit the hardware and it doesn't even know.
As long as software's written by a team of lamer nerds
The hardware will respond to you if you just know the words.

As I strapped on my eyephones and I pasted on my 'trodes,
I drifted into alpha as I  hacked away the codes.
I slipped inside the mainframe where the passwords all were blank,
And rustled 15 million from  the Central Euro Bank.

My dataglove was flaky and  my eyephones out of phase
The jitter in the timing pulse  extended the delays.
My duty cycle lengthened and  I felt the coming crash,
I loaded up some structures from  the swapped-out data cache.

When all at once the Supervisor signals and events -
The Cyber interface police has found my evidence!
I squeezed the glove and clicked the mouse and tried to use the Force,
But they had cracked my virus with a hairy Trojan Horse.

I couldn't interrupt them or defer their tasks from me
Or re-assign their swapspace to a low priority
So I just took their task ID's and put them in a queue
And vectored them to address NIL and hung the CPU.

I flatlined by the access port to watch for their reboot.
I plucked the 'trodes and cables off and threw them in the chute.
The FBI came knockin' with a warrant three feet long -
But all they got was "Space Wars" and a moldy game of "Pong"!

(circa 1988)