everybodygetsatrophy

lyrics:

here comes everybody, here comes everybody
humphrey chimpton earwicker's here in the third tier
everybody gets a trophy, everybody gets a trophy,
everybody gets a trophy, everybody gets atrophy

we like this poem
and this one too, five stars all around
we like this song
like we like facebook on facebook
like we like crack on crack
we like this picture
and the sixty million like it
we're picking this one to not like
to meet the criticism quota

it took a long time, it took a lot out of us
to play at being snobs
it's the hard won summit of a molehill, from which we see
the flatness of the world, and the mobs who took our jobs
the most serious and somber procedure of arranging
words and tones into pretty little patterns
feels important if you just don't think about it too hard
the solipsist will benefit

everybody gets a trophy
listening to your music is charity
i'm counting on your reciprocity
we stay alive symbiotically
everybody gets a trophy
so we can all pretend we're special
because we know we're insignificant
can't face that reality

music is worthless, information's free
the masses are superior to you and me
they work harder and they work dirt cheap
they keep busy contriving creativity

i haven't felt right since a lot of things
i haven't felt right since i saw the deadlight, it ain't no birthright

everybody gets atrophy
so much opportunity to do
what's been done a billion times before
the difference makes no difference anymore
crowd-sourcing apathy
let the trends become a tsunami
let it wash over me
with super-fluent superfluity

a rising tide lifts every boat... oh lord, i can see if from here
kill empathy - it's the only way
a rising tide lifts every boat... and drowns those tied to the pier
but everybody gets a trophy
a rising tide - lifts every yacht... oh lord, i can see them from here
kill empathy - kill empathy now
a rising tide - lifts all the yachts - and drowns those dockworkers tied to the pier
but everybody gets a trophy, that's right

rebuilding, re-breeding like we always do
but people aren’t special these days
we are masses and masses and most of us are surplus
someone's got us pegged
we're statistics, not tragedies, notes, not melodies
in demographic symphonies, playing dusk to dawn
they herd us through the mall corrals, put us out to pasture
buried under short-cut cemetery lawn

nobody gets benefits
but if you ever get in trouble
think of something sad to force the tears
and game the system with your pretty intern face
sympathy's your consolation prize
it's barely sympathy, much less empathy
really just self pity, self justification
the only kind of justice there can be

everybody gets atrophy
listening to your music is charity
i'm counting on your reciprocity
we only live symbiotically
everybody gets a trophy
listening to your music is charity
we gave it our attention for a string of seconds
a canteen in the desert of mutual apathy

music is worthless, information's free
the masses are superior to you and me
they all work harder and they work dirt cheap
they keep busy contriving creativity

i haven't felt right since my last fit of ecstasy
i saw the deadlight, it was no birthright, it's gonna make me wish i never had sight

kill empathy, it's the only way to survive the 21st century
we've done studies, you can't bring your mercy to the 21st century
it's okay, you'll be fine, we'll cut tragedy
make it passe like christian charity
it's a highly nuanced upgrade - some nerves need be severed
learn to love the blackouts and the operation will go smoothly
we'll cut funding to your soul, you can live without a soul, did you know?
you're a brain in a body, arbitrary, we can save your ego
forget your soul just save the ego - the solipsist will benefit
cause you can't contain the biosphere's pain
cut off your nose to spite your face, scorch the earth and mine space
the only answer is synthetic distillation
design drugs, customize genes
cook up schemes, solidify memes
kill empathy, it's the only way that we'll survive this century

everybody gets atrophy
so much to do, but so many to do it
it's been done a trillion times before
the difference makes no difference anymore
so let the crowd source our destiny
let the trends become a tsunami

a rising tide lifts every boat... oh lord, i can see it from here
a rising tide lifts every boat ... and drowns all the rest of us tied to the pier

talking monkeys, earth's greatest magic act turned into a housing tract
crammed into little vocational cavities for lack of opportunities
be sure to buy some anesthetic for your poor sore pegs
of jagged genetic defection
we're food for the next five hundred generations of germs
they're one step ahead, two steps, four steps, eight steps
revenge of synthetic perfection

we're all on the spectrum
you're not unique because you're weak
we're all in the hive mind
no your weakness isn't strong
we don't care about privacy
don't even know what it is
privacy's pre-millennium
can't imagine what you'd want with it

we're all in the hive mind
hive-mindedly hating each other
cause familiarity breeds contempt
and most people think they're better than most people
it's so pitifully predictable that i think i'm so different
just like you think you're so so different
but at least we think we're different in different ways
something to cling to

everybody gets a trophy
listening to your music is charity
i'm counting on your reciprocity
we stay alive symbiotically
everybody is a hero
for getting through an average day
congratulations hero
you blocked out that reality

put on your leather and join a side
pick a seat on the sadomasochistic thrill-ride
no empathy allowed on the thrill-ride
no sympathy given on the thrill-ride
that's your vision dreamer, let the sunshine out
let the inner light burn, let your bleeding heart clot
let the capitalists take care of it
let them venture let them gain
and fuck the ones who lost the game
deal with your own pain or be chained
to the gross global product of suffering and misery
against the grain of society
you'll be insane with empathy
seek self in the hive mind
there's no shame in the hive mind
and kill empathy
it's the only way you'll win a trophy

industrial munitions, lots of competition
plenty of ambition for precision machinery
cheap food, cheap gas, cheap labour, cheap life
the product of the 21th century
summertime is all the time
and the living in queasy in economy class
trying and dying while the water dries up
just giving it the old college drop-out try
or maybe cancel the struggle with anesthetic death
and reach for the pistol or the crystal meth
cause those saps on the coast had no warning, but you do
and who needs the chills of the heat death?

the country voted to do another line
keep the binge going, a second term is fine!
send an amazon donation to the starving hordes
eat popcorn, watch disaster porn
i'm unique, just like everybody else
like ashflakes of nuclear winter
like dental records fossilized
and blank plankton in the tides

they say one day the culling will be done
and we'll be back in harmony
or spaced out in space colonies, no thanks to me
i'm too busy consuming facts of life for breakfast
excreting rich cream filling
recycling waste for efficient malnutrition
unwilling to be the first victim
let the brown drown, the ones who couldn’t find higher ground
the hut people on the flipside of the planet, damnit
let them bear the brunt of the purge
like they always do, they're used to it
thick-skinned holy mass of messiahs
god bless 'em, no! don't look at me
i'm weak, i admit it happily
i don't make a good martyr
my genetic specs support vast sensation
at the cost of delicate nerves
they're destined for the microchip mothership
we'll escape this planet with, some millennium
some millennium, some millennium
some motherfuckin' millennium

nuance continues to squirm, divide
split hairs deep inside
the folded-on-itself cerebral cortex
nuance to prop up hypocrisy
to rationalize racism, vindicate apathy
disconnect me from reality

virii mutating, natural intelligence
casually bandied-about apocalypse
like a sci-fi premise, a rusty eschatology
shallow sutra, string-bean poetry
all washed up on wreck beach, tsunami-surplus

everybody gets atrophy
gimme gimme gimme gimme a trophy