Song, Chant, Poetry, Stories and Satire for the Pagan Community

This entry made: 11/04/1997

Title: Pict Song 2.1
Lyrics by: Isaac Bonewits (based on Rudyard Kipling's poem)
Tune: Pict Song (Leslie Fish), from the album "Cold Iron" - available here
Date: 119994
Source: http://www.qed.net/Bonewits/IB_Songs.HTML
Recorded on: "She Said" - available here
Subject: Pagan - Technopagan

Key of A-minor

Envoi (spoken):
We are the little folk, we,
Tapping away on our keys,
Sailing the silicon sea,
Weaving the Net as we please...

Eternally tyranny spreads,
Always their heavy hooves fall~~
On our paychecks, our votes, and our beds,
And the strong never heed when we squall.
Their power grows on and that's all;
And they think themselves safe in their greed,~~
Behind each secure firewall,
Ignoring the rage of our breed.

Chorus:
We are the little folk, we,
Too little to love or to hate.~~
Just the techno-peasantry,
But watch as we drag down the great!
We are the bug in the code.
We are the gap in the text.~~
We are the data grown old.
We are the program that's -- hexed!

They seem immune to all threat,
Their power so vast and so vile.~~
But we have learned on the Net
How to tap any government file
Or corporate scheme, and we smile,
As the bastards go mad in their quest~~
For the ones who've exposed all their guile,
While logging on only as "Guest!"

[Chorus]

No, maybe we are not strong,
But we know hackers who are~~
And gladly we'll guide them along,
With I-Ds to take them in far,
And passwords to clear every bar
To databanks musty and deep.~~
And we'll dump all the dirt star-dot-star,
To the Net while our rulers still sleep!

[Chorus, repeat Envoi (sung)]

[Leslie Fish's tune can be heard on her album of Kipling songs, 
"Cold Iron," available from Random Factors 
(http://sundry.hsc.usc.edu/random-factors/). I've always loved the 
original poem, feeling that it expressed well the attitudes of the
disempowered. I wrote my version of it as a way to remind my 
fellow technopeasants that we aren't as helpless as we might think 
we are.]

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