The Production Line

Steel, iron, nuts and bolts

Poor man's gold in rusted vaults

Scrap, tin, wheels and gears

Shift by shift and year by year

Rod, beam, sheet and plate

Ironclad, you sealed your fate

All that shines shall fade in time

Welded put the day you signed

The production line

You better do your best, forget about sunshine

'Cause you won't see it where you're going

And the only thing you know is

You won't get to have your lunch on time

Or ever again, 'Cause every second you spend

That isn't meeting an end that an executive penned

Is another debt that you render that'll let them extend

Upon the length of your tenure where you're ever condemned

Well, would you look at that, life's coming thick and fast

I run and zig and zag amid the tat, pick and pack, bric-a-brac

Click and drag, mix and match, stick a stack in my sack

'Til it could fill a skip of scrap then bring it back quick as a flash

We're scrappy and resilient, we're happy and we're diligent

But that's just if you're listening to marketing transmissions

Contractually itinerant, a dastardly predicament

Entrapped within a system hauling scrap for the omnipotent

Voices in the radio that point us in which way to go

The base we're excavating

What we're paid and then the pay we owe

Uncertain of the purpose to the service that we're slaving over

Purge the lunar surface of its worth to meet the daily quote

Some of us are living to work

Some of us are working to live

Some of us are making while others are just taking

And some of us are dying to give

Whoop! Yay! Hooray! Another day at the office

Slaving away and generating the profits

Heading straight for the pockets of the laziest bosses

If it wasn't for me, then they'd be making a loss

It's a struggle working double shifts, selling my soul

So my landlord doesn't have to do any at all

I'm clearly very important while you're merely a drone

Giving me steady employment just to dwell in a hole

That I can barely afford, belly unfilled like Oliver Twist

Begging for more, I don't want to exist

No longer stomaching it, wanna be somebody different

But I'm stuck as it is, so stuff it, double my shifts

Rub out the family time in your diary, erase it all

They'll only hire me if I'll be reliably available

Yet, I appear, clearly entirely replaceable

The irony's I find it to be kind of inspirational

Anxiety will make you more inclined to reach a greater goal

Until you find me crying quietly against the wall

I miss my wife, I miss my kids, I miss my life, can't live like this

Perhaps for once if salary might rise in line with rent

We'd have the funds to rise and shine, not rise in line, content

To sacrifice our family lives to those on high, hell-bent

On empires founded on the thousands drowned in the cement

I am the very model of a model employee

I never leave my shuttle, can't afford to pay those fees

My overtime does overtime, I work nine days a week

And I never hit that bottle 'til it's time to take a pee

Some of us are making a killing

While some are barely making a living

Is a life worth saving without life savings?

It's a nine-to-five, 25-to-life in prison

Lift off, ticktock, the big clock's a-ticking

Drift in, dropped off at the drop ship's position

Sod tip top condition, a tip's what you live in

Drop shipping top tip - "Tips will not be given"

With this cost of living what do lives cost?

Well, the customer ain't fussed over the lives lost

We're discounted, under the counter, half off

In stocks, at the gallows for the price drop

To rock bottom, ba-da-da-dum

Sing the jingle, give a whistle, here's your lot, plod on

It's official, sacrificial, sing the company song

Before they bop the stop-button on your oxygen

Two guys moonlight on a new moon nightly

Tryna find loot like, "Ooh, that'll do nicely"

Lamp, cookie mold, jar, fish, stop sign

Pan, whoopie, gold bar, gift box, MINE!

No, mine

No, mine

Should you be hurt in our place of employment

It'll be worse than a band-aid and some ointment

There isn't a nurse with whom to make an appointment

There's really just certain doom, painfully poignant

Each day tossed upon the scrapheap

Struggling to meet pay, care to mind the gap, cheap

Labour can be replaced when there are fatalities

Several men a week slayed, tumbling from the gantries

In what kind of dimension is debris so decrepit

Worth more than all the lives amongst the men you send to get it?

The minions paid a pittance from the millions you inherit

And then billed for the equipment

Before they get to spend the credits

Have you had an accident at work that wasn't your fault?

No, you haven't, it absolutely was your fault!

Some of us are living to work

Some of us are working to live

Some of us are making while others are just taking

And some of us are dying to give

We all bought the production line

We all toe the production line

We all march in production line

We all signed the production line

It's a hell of a show, better the devil you know

Just another shift, try to keep a grip

Haven't slept a wink and my vision starts to drift

We're here to sell you your soul, next day and ready to go

Filling up the ship, just another trip

Maddened, on the brink, in no position to resist

The wheels of progress, they turn, so get ahead or go home

I got a quota to meet or else it's over for me

And when my rota's complete then I can hopefully leave

Just never question what burns to run the engines below

We were sold on a dream but now they won't let us sleep

Take a moment to grieve and you'll owe them a fee

My school careers adviser couldn't be any nicer

She was just like, "Might as well give up and die, bruh"

It isn't that likely we'll experience retirement

When staying alive's a minimum requirement

I've trained, I've tried, 'til I'm strained, I'm tired

I'd trade my trade for a train driver's

But I'm afraid that the end of the line

Isn't a place I'll arrive 'til the end of my life

I am the very model of a model employee

Because I'm used to being toyed with by those far bigger than me

Painfully aware my fate to bear's as cog in a machine

Just one more face cast off to space for products on a screen

Production line

Production line

Production line

Production line

Production line

Production line

Production line

Production line

We all bought the production line

We all toe the production line

We all march in production line

We all signed the production line

Some of us are making a killing

While some are barely making a living

Is a life worth saving without life savings

It's a nine-to-five, 25-to-life in prison

Some of us are living to work

Some of us are working to live

Some of us are making while others are just taking

And some of us are dying to give

It's a hell of a show, better the devil you know

We're here to sell you your soul, next day and ready to go

We all signed the production line