Your price

I wrote this song after talking to a couple of men in their thirties, one released from military service and the other a hairdresser, and both were functionally unable to work due to disability caused by their jobs, and neither could qualify for relief. This is a song about the inhuman demands placed on American workers in general, the way we are expected to be loyal and hardworking in a system that tells us we are lazy, replaceable, and without human value if we cannot perform work. Don't buy into it! You have value simply because you exist, and that value is not tied to the amount of money you can generate for the corporate overlords!

Lyrics

Human Capital

Down on my luck, yeah, I’m my only product to sell.
But I’m not much to look at, and I haven’t been feeling so well.

Broke down by thirty, a failure to thrive.
Hunger and worry are my only drive.

Indoctrinated into the American Dream.
But I’m a mistake; I don’t fit into the machine.

I’ve lost my ambition. I’m worn past my prime.
I’m worth nothing to them, useless unless I’m …

Ticking like a clock
on the line ‘cause time must not be wasted,
Busy taking stock in two or three jobs they “created.”
They’ll drop me like a rock to hoist their profits even higher,
but every buck and block they have was made and laid by our
Human Capital

The heads keep on talking like I am a problem to solve.
It’s not that I’m lazy; I’m just never fit for the job.

And how can they pay me what I do not earn?
How can they teach me if I will not learn —

how to beat the clock to meet another increase in production,
elevate the stock before their corporate election,
give it all I’ve got, while they make another round of layoffs,
all so they can block more legislation with their payoffs?

I’m only human
I’m only human.
I’m only Human Capital.