Beginnings
Let’s start this post with the beginnings of my latest Skyypilot release- “Company Man”. Recently, I went through a foot-high stack of music written over forty years or so. This was just one stack of the compositions! I found a song I wrote in the 1970’s and decided to revisit.
Ben
“Ben Was A Company Man” was my original title for this song. Why? As a 6th grader, I delivered newspapers to Ben’s house. He was a factory printer. Ben was on a never-deviating schedule in his spotless navy blue uniform. I worked at that calendar factory a few years later and speculated on a similar lifestyle. It was purely fictional, of course. The song described a man who had lost all individuality, his marriage, his children, and (ultimately) his life to the system. He died a year before he was to retire ahead of an empty future-not a happy ending.
Since Then
Since then, a few hundred compositions later, my view has changed. Ironically, I became Ben (workwise, anyway) spending my adult life in factories. I chose the banal predictability of blue collar work as opposed to becoming an “act”-no regrets.
My objective is to offer hope at the end of my lyrics. If you know Jesus, there’s always hope!
My song:
Company Man
© 2019 J. Mark Witters
Once I was young, although I was strong, I was a company man.
Living each day pretty much the same way. I was a company man.
Gulped down breakfast, then went on my way.
One useful tool on a path to decay.
Another body that can be on display.
I was a company man. I was a company man.
Sometimes respected, more often rejected. I was a company man.
Had to pretend means justify ends. I was a company man.
Blindly submitting to others’ control.
Compartmentalizing my very soul.
Purposely keeping away from the fold.
I was a company man. I was a company man.
Numbing my mind just to put in the time. I was a company man.
Did what I did, with my feelings kept hid. I was a company man.
One day, I reckoned to get off the floor.
Already elsewhere; one foot out the door.
Knew all along that there had to be more.
I was a company man. I was a company man.
At my first chance, I just left the dance. I was a company man.
Having had my fill; not yet over the hill, I was a company man.
Plotted escape right to the day.
What happens next- let come what may.
No more illusions, no more can I say, ” I am a company man.”
No more a company man.
© 2019 J. Mark Witters Skyypilot Media Skyypilot.com