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Downwardly Mobile (Gov't Cheez)

from Water Wears the Stone by TR Kelley

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lyrics

there's a guy in a hardhat
leaning on a shovel
munching on a donut
with his pants slung low
bitching to his buddy
about those bums on welfare
he's making 20 bucks an hour
on the government rolls

i myself used to work in retail
stocking and selling and sweeping the floor
but my time is worth
more to me than money
ain't gonna work in no store no more
hey mister boss man you don't own me
i've dropped out and i'm doing fine
bartering and scrounging
and shopping at the goodwill
downwardly mobile on the poverty line

i said fuck the american standard of living
i can get by on a whole lot less
i live in a shack with my bike out back
and i ain't giving nothing to the IRS
hey mister boss man you can't own me
i have chosen a life of alternative ease
sitting in the sun and picking my guitar
eating top ramen and government cheese

well its not at all that i don't like working
i get a lot of satisfaction
from a job well done
but i won't sell my time
doing something i hate
there ain't no second chance
when your lifetime's done

call me a slacker on the government tit
call me a hippie and a no-account bum
curse me blue
from your white collar high rise
hating the way that your life is run?
feeling kinda empty
when the working day's done?

you got to pay somebody money
to do things you ain't got time to do
because you are too busy earning money

call me a slacker on the government tit
call me a hippie and a no-account bum
call me a red from your blue collar tavern
hating the way that your life is run?
feeling kinda empty
when the working day's done?

taxpaying workadaddy upright citizens
pay homage to the system
at the shopping mall
a consume-a-rama binge
with plastic money
you'll be working till you're dead to pay for it all
trashing the earth
just to make more doodads
get the economy higher than before
growth for the sake of growth is cancer
when the earth is gone
there won't be no more
yeah, there's gotta be some cash
for the food and the rent
but money can't buy what you really lack
time doing what you love
is time that's well spent
cuz time is the one thing
you can't buy back

credits

from Water Wears the Stone, released January 1, 1995

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TR Kelley Oregon

This pre-Raventones page has music from TR's 1990s acoustic years, which ran concurrently with here time in Babes With Axes (also available here on bandcamp)

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