“Bits of Weight” - a song about capitalism
One of my early songs I decided to dust off in honor of the US cent.
Story Pairing
It feels weird that the penny is done. I’m not saying I had a special place in my heart for the annoying little coin, but it certainly feels weird to know it’s not being made anymore. I remember as a kid we had those little plastic versions of coins that we would learn the values with. So many kids (not me of course) would take those coins and then use them to buy snacks and action figures from each other on the playground marketplace. Even then we cared very little for that copper color piece occupying the bottom. I smile thinking about that memory that hasn’t crossed my mind since elementary school. There are a few things that are in my mind as I pull this one together.
How arbitrary is currency. There are so many different ones all across the world, all made to get. As kids we used faked money with value attached to their placeholder inspirations with value attached once to gold but now with value attached to the whims of greed. When we need more we make it and then adjust its worth. And now one of those placeholders cost 4x more than the place it was holding and we are saying goodbye.
I love how a memory can be tucked away so nice and neat and then decades later something like a song can pull it out for a visit. I can remember using those fake coins to buy a batman action figure off my friend Phillip. It had an attachment for his back that would launch these little orange discs. I got it taken away after being in the front of the class playing with it and shooting my teacher in the leg with one of the discs. To get it back I had to save up my stars** over the course of the year and then choose that as one of the rewards when the time came where stars had worth. (**stars where another arbitrary currency that we would earn in elementary school for doing well with our work. A handful of times a year we could take our stars and buy things from our teachers. Mainly candy and stuff, but you could also use them to get things back that you had lost privilege too. Ah, development).
I can help but think of all the songs that I have written with the word penny in them. Now they (and all other songs singing about that little copper disc) all belong to a “pre-penny” time. I can imagine a future where someone listens to an old song and thinks “ah how quaint, the penny. I think my grandma has a jar of those somewhere. They are worth a lot now”
Should I start hoarding pennies?….
Song Structure
Verse: D - D/F# - G - A - D
Chorus: G - D - A - G - D
Bridge: G - A - D - A - G - G - A - D
Voice Memos
It’s fun and endearing to watch a younger me doing his best to fall into the thing he loves. Some old videos of this tune… the second was a jam in Barcelona!
No Notebook Page
Sometime in 2018
Lyrics
You can’t run too far, from the things that bring you down
You can’t run too far, they keep your dreaming shoes around
You used to have your head way up in clouds, since god knows when
When you get too far today, them bits of weight will drag ya in
I got ‘em tied around my feet
And in my pockets deep
Them bits of weight, them bits of weight will drag ya in
Break
Take it from me, you can't get everything you wanted
Take it from me, you got ‘nough things to hold you back
And with them words, that you just stole, from both my hands, friend I wish you well
Take it from me, everyone else has, those bits of weight can’t tell
I got ‘em tied around my feet
And in my pockets deep
Them bits of weight, them bits of weight just can’t tell
Break x2
To those mountains in the distance, we wonder why
To those mountains in the distance, did you even try
To tell us come and take your way to a place at peace all day up in the sky
And those mountains in an instant gave us bit of weight to try
I got ‘em tied around my feet
And in my pockets deep
Them bits of weight, them bits of weight for us to try
When they drag me, to the bottom of my grave
I should have known
Bits of weight would end this way
I got ‘em tied around my feet
And in my pockets deep
Them bits of weight, accumulate and then you die