I wrote a new song! I made it my goal to write twelve songs again this year, and this is my seventh. That means I’m ahead of schedule. Yay!
This one’s a bit political, which is atypical for me, but it’s about topics I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: income inequality, the wealth gap, and the rags-to-riches narrative.
Basically, I’m getting tired of wealthy people claiming that hard work and sacrifice are the only factors in their success, and that poor people stay poor primarily because of bad choices and laziness. Everyone I know is working hard. That some have become wealthy while others remain less so seems to me to have a lot more to do with privilege and dumb luck than with work ethic. So I wrote a song about it. I think the lyrics explain my position more eloquently than I ever could in prose, so take a listen!
There are also some cool non-political things going on in this song: I put in some fun harmonies, and I used the word “monocle” in the chorus. (I smile inside every time I sing it, ’cause it’s so silly!) Watch the video below, and let me know what you think in the comments.
Lyrics
You’re living like a king now ‘cause you earned it
You’re dining fine and jetting off, hiring help, and relishing
Your sovereignty
You bootstrapped from the bottom; you deserve it
And nothing makes your blood boil like the whiny kids these days
Good for nothing beggars all too soft to make their own way
You never used a crutch
You never took a handout
You never needed luck
Huh …
Tell me again how hard work turns lead into gold
‘Cause everybody’s working hard
Still eating scraps and wearing rags against the cold
Everybody’s working hard
We’re slothful, selfish, and spoiled?
Why don’t you take off your tinted monocle
There’s grit under our fingernails and blisters on our soles
Everybody’s working hard
I’ve seen your face on boxes of Monopoly
And you weren’t born on Baltic with no houses and no money
You get out of jail free
Snow White and Cinderella: no more fantasy
Than this rags-to-riches fairy tale you tell to keep us shamed
My finger’s raised to burst your bubble and to point the real blame
Tell me, who paved your roads?
Tell me, who taught you your times tables?
Who made your bed and your home?
Did you do all alone?
Tell me again how hard work turns lead into gold
‘Cause everybody’s working hard
Still eating scraps and wearing rags against the cold
Everybody’s working hard
We’re slothful, selfish, and spoiled?
Why don’t you take off your tinted monocle
There’s grit under our fingernails and blisters on our soles
Everybody’s working hard
Tell me again how hard work turns lead into gold
‘Cause everybody’s working hard
Still eating scraps and wearing rags against the cold
Everybody’s working hard
We’re slothful, selfish, and spoiled?
Picking up your slack and taking pennies for our toil
There’s grit under our fingernails and blisters on our soles
Everybody’s working hard
Everybody’s working hard
Everybody’s working hard
Everybody’s working hard
by 
