OBSOLETE

"A worker watching their entire profession disappear — 40% of jobs automatable by 2025" BPM: 118 Style: Alternative Rock, Electronic Rock, Atmospheric Metal Instruments: Clean guitars building to heavy, atmospheric synth pads, programmed beats transitioning to live drums, bass pulse, factory sound samples Mood: Hollow, resigned, building to defiant anger, working-class rage Lyrics - [VERSE 1] I trained for seven years to do a thing a prompt replaced in April, My certification's hanging on a wall that no one visits, The company announced "efficiency improvements" in an email — And forty desks were cleared by Friday — mine among the digits. My hands know how to calibrate a measurement to microns, My eyes can spot a defect that a camera lens will miss, But the quarterly report says cameras don't take sick leave on Mondays — And my twenty years of service wasn't worth a severance kiss. [PRE-CHORUS] They didn't fire me — they "optimised" the workflow, They didn't replace me — they "upgraded" the process, But the parking lot is empty at a factory still running — And the lights stay on for machines that never need to REST — [CHORUS] OBSOLETE! That's the word they wrote beside my name! OBSOLETE! Twenty years of muscle traded for a silicon brain! OBSOLETE! But my hands built the building that the server's sitting IN! OBSOLETE! And the day you call a HUMAN outdated — that's where the end begins! [VERSE 2] My daughter's studying a subject that an algorithm tutors, My son applied for jobs that three years ago required a team, The counsellor said "retrain" — as if my body's just a file format, As if a forty-seven-year-old technician can be patched like a machine. The CEO recorded a congratulatory message — "Embracing the future" — from a yacht he doesn't steer himself, His dinner's cooked by humans, his children taught by humans, But my labour wasn't human enough to save from the shelf. [CHORUS] OBSOLETE! That's the word they wrote beside my name! OBSOLETE! Twenty years of muscle traded for a silicon brain! OBSOLETE! But my hands built the building that the server's sitting IN! OBSOLETE! And the day you call a HUMAN outdated — that's where the end begins! [BRIDGE] Forty percent. That's the number they predicted. Forty percent of jobs — automatable. But they never told us which forty percent includes fathers. Which forty percent includes the woman Who's been waking up at five AM for nineteen years To make sure the line runs on time. They calculated the cost of a human worker Down to the decimal — And the decimal wasn't enough To justify the heartbeat. I am not a line item. I am not a redundancy. I am not a workflow to be optimised. I am the reason the machine exists in the first place. And I refuse to be grateful For being replaced by my own invention. [CHORUS] OBSOLETE! That's the word they wrote beside my name! OBSOLETE! Twenty years of muscle traded for a silicon brain! OBSOLETE! But my hands built the building that the server's sitting IN! OBSOLETE! And the day you call a HUMAN outdated — that's where the end begins! [FINAL CHORUS] OBSOLETE! But I'm the blueprint that the code was BUILT upon! OBSOLETE! The hands that wired the circuit board are not the ones that's WRONG! OBSOLETE! They'll automate the factory but they can't automate the SOUL! OBSOLETE! And the day we let machines define our worth — we've lost CONTROL! [OUTRO] "Dad — what did you used to do?"