A song by Rick Scobi about Jeff Bezos

Rick Scobi is a songwriter here on Substack!

Hi all,

Thank you for joining me for this week’s song, When Jeff Bezos Dies. (@Rick Scobi)

If you’d like to hear the song before you read the background, you’ll find the link below. It includes the complete lyrics as well.

I’ve written the lyrics in italics. As with most everything, there are many ways to interpret things. I invite you to leave a question or comment at the end. Please be respectful of others’ opinions if they should differ from yours.

For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below.

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The Song

(554 words)

Here’s a song I happened to find right here on Substack. It’s by Rick Scobi, someone who writes commentary on music and on a wide range of American protest songs, old and new. He’s also started writing and performing his own songs. Below, let’s look at one of them, When Jeff Bezos Dies.

Most everyone has heard of Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. Forbes lists him at the third richest human being in the world at $114 billion dollars.

In this song, the main character is a worker at one of the Amazon warehouses. He sings about the horrible conditions there.

I live in a small town

Where work’s hard to find

So I put up with the grind

The grind means something that you have to do, hour after hour, day after day. If you have a job you don’t like, but there aren’t many jobs where you live, you have to do the work day after day.

At the distribution center, there are machines (scanners) that check to make sure the workers are going fast enough. The workers who fill the orders can only reach a certain level of pay that doesn’t go up after that. Many working people have no other choice (What can a working man do?).

Scobi asks a philosophical question:

Will anybody cry when Jeff Bezos dies?

Will the robots shed a tear?

Workers in these centers have to stand for up to 10 hours a day. Sometimes, they develop injuries, but they can’t take many sick days Can’t afford to use up any more UPT (unpaid time off).

Jess Bezos shoots into space / For the human race / But there's a lot of pain down here. The point here is whether it is worthwhile to send Bezos into space when that money could be used to help the workers in his factories.

What can a single mom do? There are many single mothers working in this warehouses. Again, if you have very little (or no) choice, you take the job that is there.

I piss in a bottle to save time The word piss means to urinate. Drivers for Amazon have reported having to use bottles in order to keep up with the delivery schedule. Workers in the warehouses might be docked if they take too long on bathroom breaks. All for the profits of Amazon Prime which gets your package to you right away.

I work with injuries / I can't miss a day / Even tornadoes can't get in the way. This line refers to the six workers in an Amazon warehouse who died because they were not allowed to leave work even though the warehouse was in the path of a tornado. (See guardian article below.)

What can a union do? Here, the songwriter is asking a question that has two meanings. Above, What can a working man / single mom do? means they do not have a choice. What can a union do? Could mean the same thing - that Amazon does not have a union, so there’s nothing that can be done… or it could mean, “Hey, let’s see if a union could help the workers!”

In 2021, The Amazon Labor Union was founded. Amazon has been trying to stop its workers from joining, but it seems they feel it might just improve their lives.

Listen to the song here:

Original Song #1 - When Jeff Bezos Dies

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VOCABULARY

founded 創立

warehouse倉庫

distribution center 配送センター

philosophical 哲学的

urinate排尿する

be docked (from your pay) 日給から引かれる

tornado竜巻

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Source:

Guardian News and Media. (2021, December 16). They were forced to stay at work as a tornado bore down. would a union have saved them? | Hamilton Nolan. The Guardian. Retrieved April 28, 2023, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/16/tornado-amazon-kentucky-candle-factory-workers-died