Begin Again, released on 7 Dec 2024, starting now through May, we’ll be hosting “About the song” and Lyrics to a song every week (or longer) from the record.
About the Song “Jolly Roger” — Track 11 from Begin Again
Some animals are more equal than others.
Efforts to organize and establish significant influence or power to sway the practices or agendas of tech companies, executives, and shareholders or protect or advocate for either workers or users have been largely in effective, in my opinion because we haven't experienced enough shared suffering to incur risk in advocating for others, despite many of us being willing to articulate serious reservations about practices across the industry from labor to supply chain to user trust to privacy to unethical behavior and practices from executives and the companies they work for. For that shift to occur, it may have to come from users pulling their data and participation from platforms, but as a (currently former) tech worker, I believe skilled workers like myself have much more power to influence and change the industry than we will allow ourselves to entertain simply because our positions, our salaries, our workplaces and benefits are just too comfortable to risk challenging the powers that be or saying "no" to working on something we don't agree with. In 2023, the tech industry laid off 260,000 workers. In 2024 it was over 130,000, mine among them. Not to worry, plenty of suffering coming to motivate us if we're not willing to do it ourselves.
2025 Tech Layoffs
2024 Tech Layoffs
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MUTINEERS BAND TOGETHER!
Lyrics to "Jolly Roger"
its not our hope we've lost
its just this albatross
a starboard listing ship
the crew have been dismissed
I see your mirthless sneer
come join as a mutineer
distract tthe captain as you can
he's coming for my head
and I am not a piece of property
I am not a resource for you to allocate
once we said these dreams
would light up the sky
but tonight, only ox eyes in pale moonlight
I resigned my command
a burden I could not withstand
its all division in throwing fists
or restraint in such cowardice
I heard the golden handcuffs fall
as they tore my thumbs right off
so I don't have much sympathy
for a captain convinced he has no agency
these people are not your property
they are not resources for you to allocate
once you said
a subversive agenda would win the day
but nowhere do I see your pirate flag
let us not believe
only leaders can make change
lets bring responsibility
and pride to the way we earn our wage
they cannot sail these ships
without skilled women and men
mutineers band together,
lets begin again
we don't have to ask permission
to raise a flag, to say our peice
and quietly resist
this song is not an answer
it's a question for opening fists
there is no allowed or forbidden
each one of us must choose and stand for his or her best
be wary of those offering answers
its in the questions we must learn to live
what was my part in this?
what did I intend?
what actually happened?
and how do I live with it?
do I believe in change?
8 billion hearts and minds
are yearning to believe,
wanting to be convinced.
So with that in mind, tell me...
do we exist?