If there’s one thing this world definitely doesn’t need right now....it is a trillionaire. We live in absurd times indeed, my friends.
A stick of butter costs 8 bucks, a pound of coffee costs 25, a “cheap” bungalow costs half a million dollars, and the working class have been left twisting in the wind, while a new era of technofeudalism takes hold on our society, led by the great (yeah, right!!🙄) Elon Musk, setting the heroic example of leaving hundreds of thousands of people to suffer or die for his amusement, while claiming his crown as the world’s first trillionaire.
Bleh. Gross.
The inequality should make us scream. It should make us sharpen our pitchfork tines and demand answers. Demand fairness. But many will sit there and dream that maybe they are the ones who will finally realize the bootstraps myth, and join the club of rampant vapidity and materialistic overload, otherwise known as extreme wealth; the station where all one seems to care about is status...and power...and life extension...and shooting rockets to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere.
We should be angry. Not only about Elon, but the fact that we have allowed homeless encampments to become normalized, instead of investing in housing like it is a human right (It IS a human right!). That we don’t look at our neighbour’s economic insecurity, or our fellow human’s downright suffering, and say to ourselves that we need to help them, or better yet, implore our publicly-elected officials to do their jobs, and make sure we have a properly functioning egalitarian social democratic society to live in.
Currently, we have socialism for the rich and bootstraps capitalism and austerity for the poor. I am, quite frankly, done with it.
What is a songwriter to do but write songs that might draw attention to these issues? I am fascinated by the construct of money. This thing that is only valuable because we place value upon it. So interesting also are the different rules we place upon money depending on how much money one has...if you are a billionaire you can leverage your wealth in order to secure huge loans to buy mansions and companies and things, but you can also claim so little in your tax filings that you receive a child tax benefit cheque. What?!!
I have written many songs on the subject of economic disparity. Down Here, Something Real, Hold On To The Sound, Poverty Line to name a few. This week I’m adding another one to the growing list: You Gotta Pay To Exist
This song talks about the collective imagination that is money, and how we all buy into this capitalist ideology, with somewhat of a religious fervour (actually not somewhat, it totally is the new religion). The bridge of this song harkens back to the early days of capitalism, when privatization closed the commons off to the people, forcing them to either become dutiful workers for the machine or starve. Humans, I tell ya.
No paywall this week. The message of this song is too important and everyone should have the opportunity to listen and share it around. I am hopeful that we can move beyond our current hyper-capitalist state to a more egalitarian, social democratic society that leaves no one behind. The question is, will I live long enough to see that happen? 🤞🏻🤞🏻
You Gotta Pay To Exist - words and music by Tom Savage
0:00
-3:29
You gotta pay to exist
Better fall in line
we didn’t ask for this
trading money for time
they don’t need to change anything
they’re doing just fine
Up there in their penthouse
planning some white collar crime
Like it or not
But it’s what we got
You gotta pay to exist
don’t have to pay to breathe
at least not yet
once they destroy the atmosphere
there’ll be some stuff you gotta get
don’t have to pay to think
but thinking has a cost
things you don’t wanna hear
wind up feeling lost
but you gonna stand up
the time has come to resist
you gotta pay to exist
Long time ago
Some rich white dude had a brilliant idea
He thought everyone is going around and using all these things for free
farming the land, drinking the water, cutting down the odd tree
He thought that’s not right...everyone who walks on this earth needs to be paying something to me...something to me!!
You gotta pay to exist
that’s for sure
from the day you were born
you were meant to endure
the profit and the loss
the zeroes and the ones
the noble suffering
of being under the gun
change it or don’t
this collective myth
you gotta pay to exist
you gotta pay to exist
Saturday, June 20th - Tom Savage & Friends at Spicer’s on Wolfe Island (6-9 PM)
Saturday, June 27th - Dead Root Revival at the 1000 Islands Regatta in Brockville supporting The Watchmen and Zipperbelly (6PM)
Sunday, June 28th - Tom Savage & Friends at Spearhead Brewing in Kingston(2-5 PM)
Wednesday, July 1st - Canada Day Celebration with Tom Savage and The Mill-Rights at Spicer’s on Wolfe Island (6-9 PM)
Saturday, July 4th - DRR’s Summertime Shindig at Two Blokes Cider in Seagrave, ON
Sunday, July 5th - Tom Savage and Friends at the Opinicon in Chaffey’s Locks (1-4 PM)
Thursday, July 9th - The Mill-Rights wsg Tom Savage at The Cove in Westport, ON
Sunday, July 12th - Tom Savage & Friends at Spearhead Brewing (2-5 PM)
Saturday, July 18th - Tom Savage & Friends at Spicer’s on Wolfe Island (6-9 PM)
Thursday, July 23rd - Dead Root Revival performs live at Meyers Creek Brewing in Belleville! Looking forward to getting back to town to rock out with our Belleville crew! Tickets available here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/dead-root-revival-at-meyers-creek-brewing-tickets-1988915132702
Friday, July 24th - Tom Savage & Friends at the ANAF club in Kingston(5-8 PM) **this is the same format as TUNESDAY, with the middle set being an open mic
Friday, August 7th - Wolfe Island Music Fest Warm-up Party at Spicer’s with Tom Savage & Friends (early show, 3-6 PM)
Friday, August 14th - Dead Root Revival at The Cove in Westport, ON 6 PM start (contact
https://coveinn.com
for tickets)
Saturday, August 15th - Tom Savage & Friends at Spearhead Brewing (2-5 PM)
Saturday, August 22nd - Dead Root Revival returns to the Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield,QC
Friday, August 28th - Tom Savage & Friends at the ANAF Club (5-8 PM)
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