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about

Thanks to the participants in Kevin Dunn's periodic salons for offering notes on the original version of this song. I am happy with the revision.

lyrics

The car is coming closer on my little screen
(I’m) looking real cool on the sidewalk in my slim-cut jeans
I’m reading the Yelp reviews for the Holocene
Because ‘consumer’ is my primary identity

I read conditions back into a moral code
Yeah, the Good like Me deserve a Real Home
And when I get real sick
I can take a whole day
Pop to the Minute Clinic for a 20-dollar co-pay

Did I work for all the things I got?
My high birth and my union job?
Benefits won through struggle I wasn’t yet present to play my little part in?
Obsessed with what people deserve
Like anything you get you must have earned
So we reject a universal guarantee of Social Goods
For everyone on Earth
Just for being human, not as payment for some work
Or based on any other bullshit valuation of our worth
(WHY??)

So now you’re like a populist, but in the sense of just for Small Businessowners
Jeffersonian yeoman using corvée labor infrastructure
Cosplaying the Working Class
Hiding my elite diploma
Bought a house with family cash
But the equity is mine to hold
While ordinary working people hustle just to scrape
A couple scraps of dignity and comfort from the plate
Expected to be frugal, to avoid emergencies
The kind from which they run the risk of losing everything
But if you come from money and you’ve never been without
You can blow a thousand dollars on a table for your house
And never face the scrutiny of wasting what you’ve got
Because Austerity is for those needy folks and not for you

Did I work for all the things I got?
Stolen land and too many cops?
Big capital’s tag team with the state?
(Coercion for private property)

Obsessed with keeping things the same
Like ‘natural law’ prevents substantial change
So we reject as utter fantasy the concept of the Social Wage
Our health and home and transportation
Our basic needs understood as high quality public goods

You shouldn’t need a credit score to live
You shouldn’t need five thousand dollars down to have a place to raise your kids
Shit gets a little hairy when the things a person needs
Are granted the same status as a mere commodity
Because the Market and the Profit Motive do a decent job
Of getting thirteen Burt’s Bees flavors
But not of compensating people for their labor
Or keeping life affordable
For people who don’t own any capital

credits

from Totally, Totally., released December 9, 2022

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The Michael Character Boston, Massachusetts

It's political music, whatever. Based in Boston, MA. Absolutely willing to drive very far to play for you and five of your vaguely alternative friends in your combination kitchen/laundry room. Hit me up. I'm fully serious.

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